


A Year From Now

by mrstater



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon, Childbirth, Courtly Love, Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Pregnancy, Remarriage, Romance, Sexual Content, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:36:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 117,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.”</i> Dany takes Ser Jorah's advice, setting her unborn child, her unhatched dragons, and her quest for the Iron Throne--not to mention her relationship with her faithful knight--on a very different, but no less adventurous path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fight and Flight

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happened when I came to Chapter 65 (Daenerys VIII) of _A Game of Thrones_ and paused to ask, "What if Dany hadn't been dumb and desperate and asked Mirri Maz Duur to perform blood magic on Khal Drogo?" Shippy goodness, of course, but hopefully an intriguing and plausible twist on Dany and Jorah's storylines, as well. Sepcial thanks to **just_a_dram** , who was supposed to tell me not to undertake this thing, but was so enthusiastic about my idea that I couldn't resist writing it. Anyway, I'm getting even with her by making her beta and answer all manner of random question about ASOIAF-verse and general details. ;) Thanks, m'dear!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drogo dies, and Jorah helps Dany flee the _khalasar_ before she is swept away by the warring Dothraki.

Mirri Maz Duur's screams pealed through the Dothraki encampment like the howl of a bitter winter wind as Daenerys Targaryen emerged from the tent where her husband lay dying.

Not even an hour ago, after Drogo fell from his horse, incoherent with fever, the Lhazareen woman who had claimed to be a maegi examined the wound she; previously treated and declared it festered beyond all powers to heal. Her accented tones had fallen sharply on Dany's ears, and the dark eyes had gleamed with an emotion could only be identified as vengeance. Two of Drogo's bloodriders, Qotho and Haggo, called for the treacherous slave woman to be to staked to the ground so that all the men of the _khalasar_ who so pleased might mount her in retribution for their _khal's_ life. Dany had been too overcome with grief at her husband's impending fate to give much heed to what happened to Mirri Maz Duur after that, beyond a vague recollection of the bloodriders dragging the maegi from the tent by her matted hair. Perhaps Dany had given the command--truly, she could not remember--but it seemed they had followed through with their desired punishment for the woman they believed had intentionally killed their _khal_.

Once, Dany had balked at the Dothraki custom of rape as a show of dominance after battle, or a form of punishment for an offending slave woman. When Mirri Maz Duur's people had fallen to the Dothraki, these very cries that carried over the encampment like a dying dog's had wrenched Dany, and she wielded her power as _khaleesi_ to rescue the Lamb Woman from her horse lord abusers. Now, Dany heard the slave's anguish and felt no compassion, or even pity. She felt nothing for her at all.

"I ought not to have stopped them in Lhazar," she said in hollow tones to Ser Jorah Mormont, who had been waiting for her outside Drogo's tent and assisted her with the door flap. "I ought to have let them rape her to death then. Instead my mercy has only forestalled her fate, and killed my sun and stars. A maester might have healed him."

Her voice broke, and her knees buckled. Expecting the impact of her hands and knees with the hard packed earth and spiked dry stalks of grass that comprised the outer edges of the Dothraki Sea, she felt instead Jorah's arms go around her, preventing her collapse.

"Do not spend yourself on regrets, my princess." His fingers brushed her hair back from her face as he bent to look into her eyes. "The journey before us will require all your strength."

Dany turned her head to gaze back over her shoulder at Drogo's tent, which swam before her through pools of tears. "I would give it to him, if it would save him."

But nothing could save Drogo; Jorah, with his wealth of battlefield experience, had confirmed it. Dany recalled Mirri Maz Duur saying something about a magic art she had learned, which might buy Drogo's life, but Qotho had had silenced her with a savage kick to the belly while Haggo roared that blood magic was cursed magic, and forbidden. Even without such a reaction from the bloodriders, or the narrow-eyed distrust with which Jorah regarded the maegi, Dany's faith in the woman was as beyond mending as Drogo's body. No matter how dearly she loved her husband, she would not run the risk of the Lamb Woman's arts resulting in a fate worse than death for Drogo. Or anyone else on whom Mirri Maz Duur wished to exact revenge.

"If you must give your strength away," Jorah said, "let it be to Khal Drogo's son, who may yet live--if we ride before your husband dies."

At the knight's reference to Rhaego, the dreamlike state that had enshrouded Dany since Drogo fell began to fade. She wrapped her arms around her swollen belly and felt the baby's limbs jostle within her. She took note of Jorah and saw that he had donned his armor in place of the Dothraki riding garb he had been wearing for the horde's southwestern march, as she had commanded him to do while she made her goodbyes to Drogo. He'd also brought their mounts, saddled and laden with an assortment of bags and bundles of provisions for a journey, along with her few valuables, including the casket containing her precious dragon eggs. He believed they must flee the horde, and, as his advice had never led her astray yet--she sickened to think how they might have been spared all this if she'd heeded him about the Lhazareen slaves--she had agreed to go with him.

"Where are my _khas_?" Dany glanced about as Jorah helped her onto her silver's back, for she had grown too ungainly to mount up alone.

The encampment was unusually full of activity after a hard day's march, more closely resembling the western market in Vaes Dothrak than the horde at rest. She did not spy Aggo, Rakharo, or Jhogo among the dark braided Dothraki swarming away from Drogo's tent to ravage Mirri Maz Duur or to spar with each other for status.

"They will not ride with you," Jorah replied. "It is as I told you it would be. A Dothraki man does not willingly go into exile when the chance lies before him to fight and win his own _khalasar_ , or to be a _ko_ under the most powerful _khal_."

Dany threw back her shoulders and sat more upright in her saddle, as if to shrug off the barb of their betrayal. She still struggled to conceive of how they could, one moment, bear her a love so strong that they would lay down their lives for her, yet in the next sever all loyalty simply because her husband had ceased to breathe.

"What about my handmaids?"

Jorah opened his mouth, but before he could answer, a female voice sounded behind them. "Please, _Khaleesi_ …Do not do this thing!"

Dany and the knight turned to see Doreah and the other two slave girls huddled together beside Khal Drogo's tent, clearly having eavesdropped on the private discussion.

"The Andal would steal you away from your rightful place with the _dosh khaleen_ ," said Irri.

As always, the mention of the widowed _khaleesis_ who presided over Vaes Dothrak as holy women sent a shiver of fear coursing down Dany's spine, despite the heat of the day. The wailing of Mirri Maz Duur crescendoed to a shrill, unearthly pitch that made Dany think of the ice-like screams of the Others in the stories Viserys used to tell her to frighten her when they were children.

"I am the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms," she said. "Would you have me give up my crown to be as one of the crones?"

In her caution not to reveal her fear, Dany had stepped beyond bravery and instead sounded scornful of the most revered group of Dothraki society; she had heard Viserys' words fly from her mouth, had seen her maids react to them as if to the lash of a master's whip. But she found she did not care any longer about offending their cultural sensibilities than she cared about the injuries the _khalasar_ were inflicting upon Mirri Maz Duur.

"It is honor to sit as one of the _dosh khaleen_ ," Jhiqui argued, balling her hands into fists and beating her thighs. "And if _khaleesi_ do not go, she _die_. It is known."

"It is known," Irri and Doreah intoned.

"Not by me!" Dany cried. "I _shall_ go with Ser Jorah, and as your mistress and your _khaleesi_ , I command you to hold your tongues before I bid my knight to cut them out, and to mount your horses and--"

"With all due respect, Princess--"

" _Queen!_ " Dany snapped at Jorah, incensed that her maids-- _slaves_ \--had dared argue with her.

He inclined his head slightly to acknowledge her correction, then went on, "Without the _khals_ , Your Grace, I would advise against taking the girls with us. I am but one knight, with a queen and her unborn babe to defend. Your handmaids would only slow us down, and make extra mouths to feed. Food and water will be scarce enough in the Red Waste for we two and our horses."

"But…"

Dany swallowed, but her fear--a new fear now, not of being made to join the _dosh khaleen_ , but of the uncertainty which most women of the world faced--remained lodged in her throat like the hot, sticky horse heart custom had required her to eat. She had agreed to follow the knight's council to prevent her son being torn from her breast and fed, wailing, to the dogs, but the thought of bringing Rhaego into the world alone made her reconsider this course of action.

"Who will help me when my time comes?"

"There are birthing women in Asshai," said Jorah, and, as if the statement should have assuage her misgivings, he added, "All the more reason to ride quickly, that we may arrive there before Rhaego does."

The three handmaids gasped and approached Dany's horse with outstretched arms and pleading faces.

" _Khaleesi_ must not pass beneath the shadow," Jhiqui said.

"Spawn of Shadows harm _Khaleesi_ 's baby!" Irri wailed.

Suddenly, Jorah's horse neighed and reared up. Dany saw the knight's hand move to rest on the hilt of his sword, and she followed his gaze across the encampment, where Mirri Maz Duur's screams were being drowned out by the clashing of _arakhs_ and the bellowed taunts of the _kos_ bent on destroying each other to assume Drogo's soon to be vacant place as _khal_.

"You don't have time to entertain superstition, my queen. If you would flee, you _must_ do so now."

"This is _truth_!" Jhiqui cried.

"It is known!" said Irri.

"It is known!" Doreah agreed. Irri grasped Dany's foot where it rested in the stirrup, and was undaunted when Dany shook her off. "Do not leave to die, _Khaleesi_ , by Dothraki or Ashaai'i! Do not leave for stallion who mounts the world to die!"

"If I stay, Rhaego surely will be killed," Dany said, her path indubitably clear before her. "If I must give up my life so that he may have his, so be it." She leaned over the pommel of her saddle and stretched out her hand to touch her handmaid's cheek. "Someday, Irri, you will have your own child, and you will understand. Ser Jorah." She sat up and dug her heels into her silver's flanks and turning the horse about. "Let us ride."

They had not gone far from the horde when Dany's silver stood up on its hind legs, thrashing its front hooves madly as her _khas_ , mounted on their own steeds and riding with _arakhs_ drawn, cut them off. Dany had not fully believed Jorah that those who had been her most faithful protectors could turn against her in her time of need, showing her and her _khal_ no loyalty because he was at the brink of death. Now she wondered whether the fabled death penalty for refusing to join the _dosh khaleen_ was to be administered by the Dothraki men she had trusted and loved above all others in the _khalasar_ save Drogo.

Her ears pricked at the hiss of a blade sliding from a scabbard, and she glanced sidelong, eyes smarting at the glint of sun on steel as Ser Jorah drew his sword. For an instant she saw her knight riding down hard on the _khas_ , teeth bared and looking broader than usual in his armor--a true, fearsome bear in battle--then she was cringing back from the hot spray of blood as Jorah slashed at Aggo's horse's chest.

Dany's silver careered so wildly that it was all she could do to stay in her saddle, but she nevertheless craned her neck and saw Aggo fly from his saddle as his horse plummeted with a heart-stopping scream to the ground, pinning the man beneath it. Hearing the crunch of bone, Dany reined around and saw Aggo's head tilted backward at an angle that only could have been possible by his neck snapping.

It should not have surprised her, after the months she'd spent with the Dothraki, but Dany gaped at how Jhogo and Rakharo seemed not to miss a hoofbeat at the sight of their comrade meeting his death. Nor did they turn about to wreak vengeance upon the man who had killed him. Instead, they spurred their mounts on toward Dany who, at that moment, sat paralyzed upon her silver by a sudden tightening of her belly which was followed by an intense pressure at the base of her spine.

"Ride, Daenerys!" Jorah bellowed, brandishing his sword as he wheeled his mount back around to give chase to the other two riders. He never would have been able to catch them had he not sat astride the strong, fleet horse Drogo had gifted to him for saving Dany from the assassin in the market; as it was, the animal frothed at the mouth in its exertion. "Don't stop to grieve, you foolish child, _ride_!"

If it hadn't been for her terror for Jorah's life as Rakharo peeled off from Jhogo to engage the knight, Dany would have been wroth at him calling her a child. As it was, anger and fear flowed together to fuel her back into a gallop, though the pang in her back and belly had not fully passed.

She couldn't stop herself looking backward to see how Jorah fared against his opponents. Just as she turned, she saw him grimace as Rakharo's curved blade found the gap in the mail at his hip. Even as Dany cried out the knight's name, terrified that he, too, was lost to her, she saw that the wound was, in fact, what saved him; the _arakh_ stuck in the bone, giving Jorah the time necessary to swing his own sword around--Dany didn't know how he was able to control the hefty weapon, or how he kept astride his horse with a Dothraki blade in him--and slash Rakharo across the throat, handily decapitating him.

Ser Jorah spurred his horse harder yet, wielding both longsword and _arakh_ , which he jerked free of his hip with a roar. "Touch her, Jhogo, and you _will_ die as well!"

But the knight was flagging, Dany knew, the thundering of his mount's hoofbeats an ever more distant rumble as she and Jhogo outpaced him.

Only one thing remained for her to do. Heedless of Jorah's shouts to keep riding hard, she slowed her silver and turned around to face the whip thin, youngest of her _khas_.

"While Khal Drogo lives I am yet your _khaleesi_ ," Dany called to him. "I command you to leave me, Jhogo. Your fight is for your place among the _kos_ in the new _khalasars_ that form upon my husband's death."

" _Khaleesi_ of dead _khal_ must become _dosh khaleen_ or die," Jhogo said. "It is known!"

His fingers clutched the hilt of his _arakh_ so tightly that his knuckles turned pale, but Dany noted the hesitation in his eyes as they darted momentarily to the Dothraki encampment, where the fighting among the horse lords had erupted into pandemonium. It was exactly the distraction she and Jorah needed if they were to escape the horde with their lives.

The knight rode up behind Jhogo, no longer on the offensive, but poised for the fatal blow should the young man persist in thwarting Dany's escape.

"It is not my own freedom I seek," she said, her steady voice belying the frantic pulse of her heart. She curved her arms around her swollen belly. "I flee to save my child. The _khal_ of _khals_. The stallion who mounts the world."

This tack was a risk, she knew, for she believed Jorah now when he said all Dothraki men regarded the child of the crones' prophecy as a threat to their own power holds. But she trusted in Jhogo's youth, and in the love he bore her.

Dark eyes never leaving hers, he raised his _arakh_. Behind him, Jorah moved as if to stop him, but one look from Dany stayed the knight's sword.

Jhogo reached behind his head, lifted the end of his braid, and, with a single flick of his curved blade, cut it off. Then, he dropped the bound hair at the feet of Dany's silver and galloped away.

So did Daenerys and Ser Jorah.


	2. Ghosts in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany's condition forces a break in the journey, and when she turns to Jorah for comfort, he finds that the widowed khaleesi is not the only one grieving.

It was Jorah's intent--if it could be called an intent at all, so spontaneously had this plan to flee with Dany from the _khalasar_ unfolded--that they should ride through the night, until dawn or near enough to it, or until they came to a sheltered place where they might recover their strength and avoid the heat of the day in reasonable safety from any Dothraki who might have come after them, and set out again the following evening. After hours on the run, however, and no hint yet of the grey before dawn in the sky, he began to doubt whether they could achieve that goal. Thankfully his position in the saddle staunched the flow of blood from his hip wound--at least, he felt no ill effects from the loss of it--but the pressure of his foot against the stirrup, worsened by the necessity of sitting upright so as to prevent nodding off and falling, made his hip throb. Still he pressed onward, never making the suggestion to Dany that they stop to rest, for _she_ had not complained of weariness.

She _must be_ , though, and in her condition--weeks or days from her time, the Dothraki birthing women had said--he did not wish to push her into laboring prematurely. Not when they were so far from Asshai and help, with the Red Waste still before them. Yet that very reason also made him loath to stop, for time was not on their side.

Her cry at his left interrupted the circular path of his thoughts and the monotonous beat of the horse's hooves on the dry prairie grass and the steady rhythm of their great labored breaths. Jorah looked over as Dany pulled her horse up short, and he could see in the bright moonlight that she was clutching her belly as she gritted her teeth. At once he reined in and swung down from his saddle.

"Is it a birth pain, my queen?"

He hoped she didn't notice the tension in his own voice as he gingerly tested his weight on the injured leg; at least sitting hunched in her saddle, head down and eyes shut, Dany couldn't see him limping to her, but that brought little relief to Jorah. He'd never been in the presence of a laboring woman, but he knew that birthing involved a great deal of concentration and breathing through the pains. Which, alarmingly, seemed to be exactly what Dany was doing. His question hung unanswered in the air for what seemed like an interminable length of time, during which he felt helpless to do anything but stand at her side, stroking light, soothing patterns on her knee.

When Dany did finally raise her head, the moon revealed her face to be pale and drawn, and when she spoke she was still a little out of breath. "I've been having them for weeks. They come more frequently when I am very active."

"No one would describe today as being short on activity."

His poor attempt at humor was nonetheless awarded with a quavering smile from Dany. "The birthing women say it is not labor unless the pains come at regular intervals."

"And these do not?"

She shook her head, but the gesture didn't inspire a great deal of confidence in Jorah that he would not find himself in the role of midwife tonight, or when they resumed their journey on the morrow.

"Is there anything that helps them to stop?" he asked.

"Rest," Dany admitted, turning guilty eyes up to him.

"Of course." He gave her knee a squeeze to reassure her that she need not fret over asking for a reprieve.

As he lifted her down from her mount, a shooting pain in his hip made him suck in his breath sharply and stumble a little, drawing a concerned look from Dany. Wordlessly, he recovered his balance and looped an arm about her waist as he led her aside to a grove of scrubby trees around a shallow pond where they had been lucky enough to stop. To his mortification, he found he was supporting himself on her as much as assisting the very pregnant girl, and Dany recognized his need at once.

"Ser, you're limping."

"Just stiff from sitting so long in the saddle."

The horses followed them down to the water, and Jorah unstrapped the sleeping mat from behind the silver's saddle and spread it out for Dany.

"You need this rest as much as I do," she said as he helped her to recline on it, a bag of her clothing at her back to cushion her against the trunk of a tree.

He felt her watching him as he hobbled back to the horses to fetch his own bedding and the bundles of food and other necessities.

"How badly injured are you?" she asked.

"Not as badly as I look to be."

It came out more gruffly than Jorah intended, when truly he meant to put her off from worrying about him when she had so much else to distress her for the present. He handed her a waterskin and an apple and a piece of flatbread and of course the ever present dried horse meat and then set about collecting twigs and dried leaves for a small fire. Soon flames crackled up from the kindling, casting a warm glow around them that seemed almost a shelter itself. The night was cloudless, and no wind rustled in the bushes or through the long stalks of ghost grass, so he would forego constructing a crude shelter out of the few blankets and skins he had packed.

Sitting back on his heels to feed the fire, Jorah said, "Forgive me, my queen, for slaying Rakharo and Aggo. I know you loved your _khas_."

Dany's face was blank as she chewed; after she had swallowed, she said, "They gave you no other choice."

Her tone, the same flat, vacant one with which she had spoken of Mirri Maz Duur's fate at the hands of Khal Drogo's bloodriders, made a pit form in his stomach. Not that the maegi and the _khas_ didn't deserve to fall out of the _khalees_ i's favor, but it unnerved him that someone as sweet and gentle of heart as Dany could turn so completely so quickly against any, no matter how beloved they had been, who betrayed her.

He prayed she never learned of his own sins against her.

"I should not have apprised your _khas_ of our plan to flee," he said, rummaging through one of the saddlebags for rags and bandages to tend his wound, "but I did not relish the prospect of escorting you alone through the Red Waste."

"You saved my life many times over today, Ser Jorah, and the life of my son. He shall hear stories of how you acted with great bravery and honor. You have my complete trust in whatever adventure lies before us."

Jorah was touched--and the fear of a moment ago ebbed with the thought that surely saving Dany from assassination and, perhaps worse, from a life of isolation in Vaes Dothrak with the crones, more than atoned for his brief stint as a spy.

"l live to serve you, my queen," he said, with a deferential tilt of his head. "Though I beg you excuse me for a moment. I will be better able to serve you if I tend my wound."

"Please, let me do it for you." Dany moved awkwardly, placing her hands on the ground as though to push herself to her feet, but Jorah took her by the shoulders and gently pushed her back on her sleeping mat.

"You are most gracious, my queen, but you are hardly of a state to kneel beside me."

For an instant her face looked stricken, though Jorah could not imagine why; he had not spoken harshly to her. Perhaps she did not like to be reminded of the limitations of her pregnancy. More likely it was her fatigue, or a trick of the shifting firelight, he told himself as he moved just beyond the glowing circle of their small encampment, where there was light enough for him to see to his wounds, but not so much that Dany should see him in the necessary state of undress. He stripped off plate and chainmail and sweat drenched shirt and took down his trousers just low enough to assess the damage Rakharo's _arakh_ had wreaked on his hip.

On first glance the wound was alarmingly ugly, caked with black blood. To his relief it sponged away easily enough--just a scab. Clearly, his perceptions and anxieties had been colored by the memory evoked of removing Khal Drogo's poultice earlier that day--had it really been the same day?--and discovering the wound that oozed foul, black blood and infection.

A thorough cleansing of his skin revealed the gash in Jorah's hip to be deep, slicing all the way through layers of skin and muscle to the bone--which he knew already, having experienced the lightning bolt of pain when he'd ripped the curved blade out of himself. A crimson bubble indicated that the blood had clotted. He worried that beneath it there might be bone shards, but a little careful probing revealed it to be a clean cut. A maester likely would have examined him more carefully and applied healing herbs and salves before stitching him up, but Jorah would have to settle for keeping the wound clean and tightly bandaged. He flushed out the gash, careful not to set it to bleeding again, then packed it with clay from the edge of the pool and bound it tightly with a strip torn from one of his shirts. He made a supply of bandages from the shirt, then, having donned a clean one, rejoined Dany by the fire.

"Since you wouldn't let me tend your wound," she said as he arranged his pallet at what he hoped she felt was an appropriate distance from hers, "then you should at least agree to let me take the first watch."

Jorah took a swig of the fermented mare's milk he had, thankfully, brought in another skin, and shook his head. "No, my queen. You need to sleep."

"I need to _rest_ ," she argued. "I am grown too big now to be comfortable enough for sleep, and Rhaego always seems to wake whenever I go to bed."

Perhaps it was an effect of the mare's milk on his empty stomach, but the thought of Dany's babe was, strangely, a pleasant distraction from the ordeals they had faced that day, and Jorah heard himself chuckle; the rumble of it in his chest relaxed him as much as the drink. "An active lad, is he?"

Dany was looking intently at the round expanse of her belly which her Dothraki fashioned vest scarcely contained. "You can _see_ him move. Come and look."

She patted the edge of her sleeping mat, and despite the aching protest in his hip as he pushed himself upright again, he willingly limped over to join her. He studied her belly, taking note of the protrusion of her navel and the dark brown line that ran down from it and vanished into her leggings, but saw nothing that resembled the movement of a baby within.

"He always gets still when I tell people to look," Dany muttered, prodding her belly with her fingers.

"Asserting a strong will from an early age? A quality most befitting the stallion who will mount--"

Jorah went abruptly mute as the upper portion of Dany's belly bulged outward, as if it were made of clay and a potter were shaping it from within.

"By the gods," he murmured, leaning in closer as a clear ridge pressed against her skin and moved across her. "Now there's a sight…"

"Would you like to feel him?"

Jorah looked up into Dany's shining eyes. Though he very much wanted to do as she invited him, and even raised his hand, he could not bring himself to do it. Many years had passed since he'd considered himself an especially religious man--if he ever had been at all--but now a reverence stole over him, as if he'd been granted the chance to touch something holy. He was not at all certain he was worthy.

Dany, apparently, disagreed. She clasped his hand and pressed it, open-palmed, to the swell of her belly, and instantly Jorah felt the stir of life within her.

He couldn't have said what he'd thought it would be like, but he had _not_ expected a barrage of strong punches and kicks from fully identifiable hands and feet and elbows and knees, or the slow, solid glide of some larger part of the child as he turned himself about within her in such a way as made him imagine arching backs of the great whales he'd seen when he'd crossed the Narrow Sea to Essos.

"That was either his head or his hind end," Dany said.

"I hope Prince Rhaego sorts which is which before he decides to come out."

The quip won him a smile, and a soft laugh. But they both became serious again as she guided his hand along her taut skin--it was astonishing how tightly stretched it was, like skin across a drum, when it had such suppleness--to follow the child's movement .

"My lady wife conceived three babes, but never carried any so long as to feel their movements." Jorah's throat constricted, and he swallowed painfully. How differently would his life have turned out had his children been born alive? "Truly, it is a miracle. Daenerys?"

For in the firelight, he saw the glisten of tears upon her cheeks.

"My queen," he said, "have I offended you?"

The violet eyes she turned up to him were as sad as the ones that still haunted him from a premature childbed that had become her deathbed.

"Drogo loved to feel him."

All the breath went out of Jorah, then, as he remembered that the child moving vigorously beneath his hand, soon to be born, was another man's. As was the heart of the mother. That the man was dead made no difference. They still belonged to him.

Dany rolled onto her side, turning her back to Jorah. But when he tried to stand, she reached back and caught his hand again, pulling his arm around her so that he had no choice but to lie down beside her. She pressed his palm against her belly, holding to him as she softly wept until the baby settled within her and she fell asleep.


	3. Rude Awakenings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jorah's unintentional revelation ensures that his journey with Dany across the Red Waste will be no more peaceful than their escape from the Dothraki.

In the space between waking and sleeping, Dany became aware of a pair of arms encircling her as she lay abed. Strong arms, the muscles coiled tight as thick rope even when at rest, and a broad, solid chest was at her back.

His chest wasn't the _only_ firm part of him pressed to her. With her eyes still closed and a smile tugging on her lips, she arched her back and rocked her arse back again his arousal. The movement made her own secret places clench and grow warm and slick, and she decided that the big, roughened, and very _warm_ hand that lay beneath her own small one on the rounded expanse of her belly would better serve her elsewhere. She guided it upward so that the long, callused fingers curled around her breast, and sighed in answer to his slow exhale of satisfaction.

But, as he remained fast asleep, evidenced by his soft snore, Dany ceased rubbing against him. She allowed herself to be lulled back into a state of deeper unconsciousness by the steady beat of his heart at her back and the rise and fall of his chest as he drew and then released the deep, even breaths of slumber, which must surely be responsible for the first restful night's sleep she'd had in weeks.

She'd never shared a bed with Drogo before, not all night, and not to sleep, nor had she woken with him in the pale light of morning to feel him want her, and to want him in return. It was not the Dothraki way. What had prompted her husband to dispense with custom _now_? she wondered, though of course she was grateful he had done, in this time when she needed the comfort and shelter of his arms more than ever--

Realization gripped and left her as breathless as a birth pang.

She needed comfort and shelter because Drogo was _dead_.

By now, one of the kos had proved himself in combat and taken his place as _khal_ \--or the _khalasar_ had fractured under the leadership of more than one who claimed Drogo's title--and Dany had fled to save her son from the warring Dothraki men, to save herself from Drogo's bloodriders whose last duty to him was to take his _khaleesi_ back to Vaes Dothrak where she would live out the long years that remained to her with the crones. Ser Jorah had killed two men to protect her from that fate, had himself been wounded, and--

Dany's eyes snapped open, smarting in the unexpected midday brilliance--for it had been almost dawn when they made camp in the grove they'd happened upon at the outskirts of the Dothraki Sea--and darted down to the hand that lay curled about her breast. Large and long-figured like Drogo's, yes, but fair of complexion rather than swarthy, and, where Drogo's skin had been smooth, scattered over with fine hairs…

"Ser Jorah!"

He jolted at her back, and Dany felt the pounding of his heart as his hand flew from her breast. The rest of him moved rather more slowly away from her, no doubt due to his injured hip; it must be even stiffer after sleeping on the hard-packed ground, as Dany discovered her joints to be when she, too, awkwardly pushed herself to sit upright. His lips, however, were quick to make apology.

"Forgive me, _Khaleesi_ …I did not mean…I slept…" He kept his body turned rigidly away from hers as he pushed himself to his feet, eschewing his usual courtly deference to her in obvious embarrassment about his state of arousal.

As well he _should_ be, Dany thought, while at the same time her own face flushed red hot that her body had responded to Jorah's; the tingling between her thighs, in fact, still had not completely faded. Granted, her mind had very much believed that it was Drogo who lay with her, Drogo she wanted.

Certainly she did _not_ want Ser Jorah Mormont, even if he was her most faithful servant and protector.

But it seemed that Ser Jorah Mormont wanted her.

If that was true, it rather called into question just how faithful he indeed was. It _couldn't_ be true. She'd entrusted him with her very life…her child's life… Perhaps it had been the same for Jorah as for her. Perhaps he'd held her and dreamed of another woman…his wife…

But as Dany's gaze traveled down from Jorah's rigid shoulders along his arm to his hand, balled into a white-knuckled fist at his side, she knew that wasn't so. His demeanor was not only that of a man who'd been caught in a compromising situation, but whose best-kept secret had been found out by the very person it concerned.

"Do you love me, ser?" she blurted out.

The last reaction she expected from Jorah was for him to give a gruff snort of a laugh. "Love has little to do with how a man's body responds to sharing a bed with a beautiful woman, _Khaleesi_."

Incensed--and insulted, though it was ridiculous to feel slighted by the absence of unwanted attention--Dany ground out between her clenched teeth, " _Do you love me?_ "

She wanted him to face her like a full noble knight: to look her in the eyes so that she would know when he denied it that he spoke truly.

Instead, Jorah remained rooted where he stood, his broad shoulders stiff, turning his head only slightly so that she saw his lined face in profile. "You know you have my love, my queen."

If she were not so ungainly with child, Dany would have leaped to her feet--indeed, if that were not the case, she would have been on her feet long before now--and grabbed the big man by his shirt and shaken him, or beat her fists against his chest. As it was, she was forced to muster as much authority as possible while looking up at him from the disadvantaged position of her sleeping mat.

"Do not speak to me in courtly platitudes! Are you _in love_ with me?"

She regretted all her wishes that he would turn to her when he finally did, and she saw his answer etched so deeply in the lines of his face that she felt pierced by the emotion that had wrought it. That only served to stoke the flame of her ire; why should she suffer guilt for his inappropriate feelings?

"My husband is dead but a day, ser."

Jorah took a step toward her, hands open in a gesture of innocence. "I never intended to declare myself, Daenerys--"

" _Your Grace!_ "

"--at least, not so soon."

Dany had been finding it increasingly more difficult to sit upon the ground with dignity, and the last shreds that remained to her were seized by the sudden contraction of her belly. As she bowed her head to wait it out, Jorah dropped to his knees beside her and reached for her hand. Instinctively she squeezed his fingers, only to realize what she was doing and jerk her hand from his grasp.

"Why did you urge me to leave the _khalasar_ , Ser Jorah? To save me, or to seduce me?"

Jorah's face reddened. For a moment , Dany thought it might have been due to the effort of getting up on his wounded hip, and she felt a twinge of remorse for what she'd accused him of; he had, after all, taken an _arakh_ for her. But when he had risen to his feet, favoring the injured leg, and he spoke, she couldn't deny that he flushed for any reason other than anger.

"When have I proved so unfaithful that you will not now give me the benefit of the doubt?"

 _Never_ , Dany thought, but she lifted her chin. "Loving me would explain why you have such a vested interest in keeping me from the _dosh khaleen_ , would it not?"

The blue eyes that met hers turned icy cold. "If you're so determined to question my honor, your grace, you would do well to consider that love is the _least_ I stand to gain from seeing to it that your future is not wasted amongst the crones."

He could only mean the death sentence that awaited him in Westeros, and Dany wondered that he should choose to draw attention to it when she was already suspected him of serving her with ulterior motives, or that he should demean the love he claimed to bear her--though she abandoned that line of thinking the moment it crossed her mind. She wondered at herself for never considering that Jorah might have served Viserys, and then her, for any reason other than he believed that they were the legitimate successors to the Iron Throne. And did it _matter_ what his driving motives were, so long as he served her before himself? No, she would not entertain that question. Of course it mattered, when the servant in question was a knight.

But then he asked, very quietly, "At least do me the courtesy of answering me this: if my motives are so impure, why would I have saved the child you carry by another man?"

Dany had never felt more stung except for the time Viserys had struck her. But rather than having awoken the dragon, Jorah made her want to run away from him, to hide, to cry like the little girl she thought she'd left behind in the long ghost grass of the Dothraki Sea when she conceived Khal Drogo's son. As if to add insult to injury, Rhaego now made it impossible for her to get up off the ground so that she could get away from Jorah.

And it was the knight himself who saw her dilemma and caught her elbow, helping her to her feet, only releasing her gently when he was certain she had her balance.

She couldn't decide, as she waddled out of sight beyond the scrubby bushes that surrounded the pond, if it would have been more humiliating to have requested his help following what had transpired between them, or that he'd played the consummate knight, anticipating her need without her having asked.

* * *

 

  
When Dany's slight frame had disappeared into the brush, Jorah allowed himself an indulgent moment to stare after her and wonder how in seven hells had things gone so badly between them. Then, as a man grown accustomed to dealing with the disappointments consequential to events spiraling out of his control, he thought and did the only things he could: whatever came next.

He hobbled into the wooded area, where he would be out of sight even though he strongly doubted Dany would return to their camp any time soon, and relieved himself. He checked his bandage and made sure his wound was still clean and, though it was, flushed it out with water and repacked it with fresh clay before binding it up again. The gash stung when he moved and his hip throbbed deep within whenever it took his weight, and he did not at all relish the thought of how much stiffer he would be after another long night's ride. There was no avoiding it, though, if they had any hope of reaching Asshai before the time came for Dany to deliver.

In his saddlebags he kept a map of Essos he'd purchased before Khal Drogo marched the horde southward across the continent. Jorah checked it now against their supplies, doing his best to ration them out based on how long he guessed it would take them to cross the Red Waste, if the traders' crude sketch of the land was to be trusted. A bead of sweat rolled down between his shoulder blades, and he twitched them together to relieve the itch; the southern desert lands before them would be hotter than this shaded glen at the edge of the Dothraki Sea, and the heat likely would steal their appetites and stretch their meager rations of dried horse meat and flatbread and apples beyond what they would have lasted in a more temperate clime. Feeding the horses would be a different matter, however, and there was only so far one could stretch a water supply. He'd brought extra skins, but ultimately he knew their survival would depend on finding water in the Red Waste. He emptied the skin containing the mare's milk--after taking a much-needed swig--and filled it with clear water from the pond.

While he performed that task, he spied mounds of mud built up around holes which could only belong to crayfish. Thinking it prudent not to deplete the supply of food that would keep on their desert trek, he lured a few out of their homes with bits of meat attached to string. A hunt through the shrubs produced half a dozen quail's eggs. A poor meal, he reflected as he prepared it, compared to what he had enjoyed back home on Bear Island--but, as the aromas of cooking food filled his nostrils and made his stomach growl, his dour spirits lifted a bit and he considered that it was better eating than horse jerky, stale flatbread, and bruised apples, at any rate, and, with wild onions and greens, quite a fine meal by the standards of a wayfarer. It should please Dany, who had turned her nose up at nothing since she devoured the horse's heart, though he knew she craved variety that could not be found in a Dothraki _khalasar_.

Once he'd allowed his thoughts to touch Dany, Jorah couldn't keep them away from her. Admiration for her swelled up within him as it had a thousand times before when he considered how she'd not merely endured, but embraced a life no other woman he'd known would have been capable of--apart, of course, from his kinswomen, but the Ladies Mormont were a different breed of female altogether. Certainly not Lynesse, for whom Bear Island's best--which, admittedly, was rustic in comparison to greater houses of the Seven Kingdoms--had not been good enough. Dany, however… _she_ could be content with such a life as he could offer her…

If he hadn't ruined any chance he might have had with her by his carelessness. How could he have fallen asleep? He'd been exhausted, of course, but he'd fought battles and ridden a day and a night before and not dropped his guard when he needed to be awake. Dany's naivety about men--an ironic quality in a woman who'd no doubt experienced a great deal more with Khal Drogo than did most women whose husbands were not Dothraki horse lords--did little to help matters, Jorah's attempts at explaining his arousal having been lost on her.

His face burned again as he remembered how appalled she'd been by his declaration. The best he could hope for that it was less disgust with the idea of having _his_ love than with the idea of having the affection of any man apart from Drogo, the very day that he died. Still, Jorah wondered whether she would have been so enraged if he'd managed to make her believe that what he felt for her was merely a more general form of lust--though _he_ had not liked to diminish the feelings he harbored for her, which he held to be true, and honorable. He would lay down his life for her without hesitation; he _had_ given up his pardon for her, which was very nearly the same thing.

Their breakfast ready--or dinner, more accurately, given the hour--Jorah removed the pan from the fire and scanned the thicket for any glimpse of Dany through the foliage. She was avoiding him, he knew. The question was, would she return to him of her own accord, or would he be faced with the humiliating task of drawing her out?

No sooner had he thought it than, in the first stroke of good luck that had befallen him since he awoke with his hand full of her breast--excepting the eggs and crayfish--a rustle in the bushes signified Dany's return.

Jorah stifled a groan as he struggled to his feet. He was unsure how to address her, after their previous _conversation_. She seemed more docile now than when she'd left him, though this shift in mood didn't make Jorah feel particularly hopeful; if anything, he was baffled as to what her thought process had been during her absence. Perhaps she didn’t know any better herself; she was, after all, grieving, and rather abruptly thrust into the life of an exile. Too well he remembered his own fractured state of mind in such circumstances.

He opted to pursue safe topics of conversation. "I thought we might break our fast with quail eggs and crayfish," he said, gesturing to the pan cooling beside the fire. "There is, of course, more dried horse meat if you prefer, _khaleesi_."

"Queen, not _Khaleesi_."

She spoke in a voice as stiff as her posture, though she did allow Jorah to help her to sit by the campfire. Fair enough, he granted--though he balked at the idea that _this_ was how it was to be, Dany contradicting him on every point, when they had argued on but one. He'd called her _khaleesi_ out of habit, and, truth be told, the Dothraki title had become more a familiarity to him than a courtesy. Certainly it had not been his intent to do her _dis_ honor.

Perhaps he might have found an easier way home than this, after all, if he'd let the bloodriders take Dany back to Vaes Dothrak.

Jorah lowered himself onto the ground across from her and dished up their food onto two tin plates. He gave her the larger portion, and took satisfaction in watching her tuck into it hungrily.

"Not long ago, you said the opposite," he observed.

Dany kept her gaze lowered on her plate as she replied, "But I am no longer _Khaleesi_. Some other _khal_ 's wife is. I am Queen of the Seven Kingdoms--but to the Dothraki I am nothing."

Her voice was steady, but very soft, and Jorah realized that the young woman had lost not only her husband yesterday, but her people. After her brother's death, Dany had fully embraced the Dothraki as the subjects, the _house_ she had never known. She'd taken up the mantle of _khaleesi_ not just because she was Drogo's wife, but for her own sake.

"You could never be nothing to anyone," Jorah spoke the words that sprang readily to his tongue, though he knew they were too much even before Dany set her plate down hard upon the ground and looked up at him with the same slightly horrified expression she'd worn during their earlier conversation. Still, he went on. "I know how bereft you feel of your husband--he was your sun-and-stars."

It was difficult to pronounce the endearment by which he had so often heard Dany refer to a man who wasn't him without allowing bitterness to creep in to his voice, but he _must not_ make things worse by letting her sense the jealousy that had eaten at him as he watched her fall in love with her husband while at the same time becoming aware of his own deepening feelings. Nor must he allow her to think he rejoiced in Khal Drogo's death because it improved his own prospects.

And truly, he grieved with her. Jorah respected Drogo as a warrior and regarded him as a friend, in so much as the Dothraki had friends. The _khal_ had given him more welcome than any other he'd encountered since he fled Westeros.

"You will bear Khal Drogo's child," he said, hoarsely. "For as long as you live, you shall always have a tangible piece of the man you loved. And his people," he added. "Jhogo cut off his braid and cast it at your feet in submission to you. Someday you may yet have a Dothraki army to invade Westeros."

Dany's face was unreadable as she picked up her plate and resumed eating in silence. Jorah watched her as he chewed his eggs and crayfish, a deal less enjoyable than anticipated as by now they'd grown cold. He couldn't tell which of his words she was digesting and which she was discarding; for all he knew, she was just as likely thinking what a poor cook he was.

Jorah sighed. "I won't call you _khaleesi_ if you don't wish it."

"I don't," Dany replied brusquely. Then, her violet eyes met his and she added, "Thank you."

They agreed to tarry a while longer, resting during the heat of the day, taking supper, and then strike out for the Red Waste just before sunset. Apart from the words necessary for making plans, they avoided conversation. This was easy enough while Dany passed an hour or longer napping--easier than sitting on his own mat, _not_ sleeping but trying not to watch her, which he suspected she would care no more for than she'd cared for him curling up with her while she'd slept.

But as he gave her a boost up onto her horse, he found he could keep silent no longer.

"Believe me, Your Grace, truly I did not mean to join you in your bed…and I certainly did not intend to take advantage of your vulnerability to promote my own interests."

He loathed how stilted his words sounded. And how apologetic and submissive he must be.

Yet he gladly swallowed his pride when she looked down at him from her saddle and said, surprisingly, "I know you did not mean to, Ser Jorah. You were exhausted, and fell asleep. As I did. I turned to you for comfort. And you gave it."

He was about to thank her for being so understanding and forgiving, when she clucked to her silver and directed the horse back out to the prairie, looking back at him to add, "As a faithful servant would."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this story and have an extra moment, I'd love to hear from you! Dany/Jorah shippers unite!


	4. Shadow of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Red Waste, Dany sees only one end in sight, and it's not the one she and Ser Jorah hoped for.

****"Now I understand why none of Drogo's bloodriders pursued us beyond the Dothraki Sea." Dany gazed at the barren land that stretched out before them, unbroken except by the long-legged shadows of their horses cast by the setting sun at their backs. "They believe my death sentence for not joining the _dosh khaleen_ will be served here."

For seven days they'd ridden in the Red Waste--at least, Ser Jorah said it had been seven days; Dany had lost all sense of time herself as they rode by night and slept, or tried to sleep, during the heat of the day, and nothing around them ever changed. They might well have been riding in circles, the landscape was so unvarying, but for the occasional dried up stream cutting a shallow gorge through the pattern of cracks, or the pockets of stinking, stagnant pools of water from which they and their horses had no choice but to drink.

"I have no intention of dying here," Jorah replied, "for the carrion birds to pick my bones clean."

It wasn't the first time Jorah had spoken thus, or something similar, but it was the first time the defiant words had not been matched by an appropriately gruff tone of voice. Dany looked over at her traveling companion and saw the knight slumped in his saddle, his face drawn and gaunt and grey despite the sunburn that blistered his fair northern skin. Though he was obviously suffering the effects of hunger and exposure, the big man still had a good deal left on his bones for the carrion birds.

At first glance, Dany did, too, her pregnant belly bulging uncomfortably against the pommel of her saddle. As big as ever, but the hand resting on it looked bonier than she remembered, the skin between her knuckles stretched taut and thin; beneath her low-hanging belly, her leggings did not cling as tightly to her thighs as they had before her flight from the _khalasar_ , when she'd often felt at the end of a long day's ride that she had to consume enough meat to make an entire horse--or whatever other animal she could persuade her _khals_ to slaughter--before her belly stopped rumbling. Now she thought every morsel must be going to the child in her womb, bypassing her stomach altogether. It was a small blessing that, as Jorah predicted, the heat subdued her appetite somewhat, but the nausea and dizziness that signified the hunger that was, indeed, present reminded her of the early days of her pregnancy, and Dany wasn't at all sure they were preferable to the gnawing, empty pangs. Worse was the lack of water to wash down the sick feeling and clear her head, and the persistent feeling that her mouth and throat were as parched as the landscape.

Jorah must have read her worry on her face, because his leg brushed against hers as he either reined in his horse close, or the animal lost its footing--which was equally possible as the heat and inadequate water and rest took their toll. "Nor will I allow that fate to befall you, my queen."

"Over your dead body?" It was a poor attempt at humor, which Jorah acknowledged with a mirthless grunt. "Forgive me, ser, for making light." Dany sighed. "I have never doubted your protection."

She twitched her dry, chapped lips into a smile that was as much a lie as her words. How could she _not_ doubt--not the willingness of his spirit, but the ableness of his flesh? Jorah might be a fair way off from starvation, but he could no longer mount or dismount without grimacing, walked with a limp that was more pronounced every day, staggering about each time he set up their camp.

"How does your wound heal?" she ventured to ask as he hobbled around the crude shade he'd erected from one the saddle blankets and some brushwood he'd found at the bottom of one of the dried-up riverbeds, having earlier excused himself to check his injured hip.

"Well enough, Your Grace."

Dany knew by the way he addressed her--he only used her title whenever he was attempting to distance himself from her--that he was anything _but_ fine. As she had no desire to humiliate him, not when he was so obviously shamed by his frailty, not when he'd been the model knight since his inopportune declaration of love and the ensuing quarrel, she let it go. Not, however, before she felt the stab of fear that beneath breeches and bandages, his wound festered black and bilious, and that one day he would fall from his horse like Drogo and leave her to alone endure whatever remained of her life.

Here, with death always looking them in the eyes, Dany longed for Drogo as she hungered for a proper meal and thirsted for a full waterskin of clean, cool water. While there was nothing untoward about mourning for a husband seven days dead, what troubled Dany was the realization that she grieved not so much for what she had lost, but for what she never had at all. Ever since she'd woken in Jorah's arms thinking she was in Drogo's, she wanted to experience that closeness with her husband. She loved Drogo--he was her sun-and-stars--yet something vital, which she couldn't name, had been absent from their marriage. It had never occurred to her that anything was, until Jorah showed her, until Jorah made her desire something different, something more.

Drogo had been her lover, but never her friend. Jorah seemed to believe he could be both.

The knowledge that she _could_ have that didn't help matters at all. It was unseemly that she'd allowed her thoughts to turn to another man when Drogo had been dead so short a time. If it were merely a matter of seeking out another provider and provider, or even a comforter, she would feel no guilt in giving herself to a man after Drogo. But she knew Jorah would give her all of that without expecting anything more in return. Why had he complicated everything by telling her he loved her? How could he have allowed himself to fall in love with her at all? She was his queen, he a knight in her service.

Yet a part of her--a very small part of her, which she tried her best to ignore--was flattered that such a man as Ser Jorah should regard her as a woman. He'd been her teacher and, and, though grateful for all the assistance he'd given her as she grew accustomed to her life among the Dothraki, she'd often felt like a child in his presence; he even called her _child_ , almost as often as he called her _khaleesi_. It had made her doubt whether she could take up the mantel of authority, whether everyone would regard her as a little princess playing at a game of thrones. His love gave her confidence that this was not the case.

But that must be all she accepted of Ser Jorah's heart. Dany was annoyed with herself that she couldn't bring herself to reject even that. She was Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, by the gods. What need had she of the opinions of lowly knights? Exiled knights, at that.

And he was neither young, nor handsome.

"By your reckoning," she asked, abandoning her futile attempt at sleeping, and turning over to find the knight watching her, "how much farther to Asshai?"

No doubt the question vexed Jorah, but in addition to wanting to reach the city before they starved to death in the Red Waste, Dany found herself suddenly desirous of company other than a lovelorn knight and her own troubled musings. She'd passed most of her life with only her brother, but a year in a bustling Dothraki horde had accustomed her to never being alone. She missed her handmaids, and though she knew Jorah was correct that larger numbers would have slowed them down and been impossible to feed and water, she resented that he was.

"As I have said, Your Grace," Jorah answered, a deep frown tugging at his mouth and furrowing his brow," I cannot be certain of how far away it lies, or how far we have come. Seven days' hard riding such as we've done on such good horses ought to have brought us a fair way, but I cannot be sanguine." His expression turned to one of concern as blue eyes that were too bright for his face searched Dany's. "I am all too aware that the closer we come to Asshai, the closer you are to your time. Has there been any change?"

Dany shook her head, not quite meeting the knight's eyes. "Still only occasional pangs. They don't last long."

This wasn't true--the pains had increased in both number as well as endurance. It was a testament to Jorah's exhaustion that he hadn't noticed; of course, they'd spoken little during rides or rests, so the pains had not interrupted conversation.

But for all that Jorah arched one eyebrow shrewdly. "You wouldn't keep the truth from me, would you?"

"Would _you_ keep the truth from me about your hip?"

The corner of Jorah's mouth twitched and his gaze flickered away. "Will the truth bring us more swiftly to our destination?"

"Don't be a fool, Ser Jorah. I worry for you."

Jorah lay back on his sleeping mat, draping one arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun that beamed through the cloth of their makeshift tent. "You have a heavy enough burden to carry, Your Grace, without taking on the burdens of your _servants_."

He spoke bitterly, but Dany was too weary to admonish him. It was his exhaustion talking, and the pangs in his belly and the ache in his hip.

And the heaviness in his heart, which she had put there.

* * *

Day burned into night, fire to ash, so that even Ser Jorah could not keep count and Dany thought they must have died without knowing it and ridden into the night lands. Except that Drogo wasn't there, so perhaps it was one of the seven hells, instead. Though if it was, Viserys should have greeted them in his golden crown, and he never did, so perhaps they yet lived, after all.

If it could really be called living, what they were doing in the Red Waste. More like waiting for death to come and meet them. Not even riding toward it, since they never seemed to get any closer to their destination.

Despite death's inevitability, they yet feared it, and now they dared not stop to break camp and rest, lest the lie down and never rise up again. They ate in their saddles as their horses plodded along, and one day Dany took a bit of meat and flatbread from Jorah, her skin rubbing against his rough as sand fingertips, and noticed he kept no food for himself.

She looked down at the morsel cupped in her own cracked and peeling hand, and then back up at Jorah.

"This is the last--isn't it?"

His eyes met hers, the blue peering out with almost unnatural brightness from the darkened hollows into which they'd sunk, the whites shot through with spider veins of red. For just a moment, she saw sadness and defeat reflected in them, but then he drew back his shoulders and met the truth like an unconquerable opponent upon the field of battle.

"It is, my queen."

Dany curled her fingers around the food and leaned out over the pommel of her saddle to offer it back to him. "Take it. Take all of it."

Jorah recoiled from her, though the action was belied by the tongue that darted out in vain to moisten his lips, and by the flash of hunger in his eyes. "I couldn't."

"You _will_."

A thin smile ghosted his ashen face. "Do you command it? On pain of death?"

"You've starved yourself for me, my full noble night. But it won't make any difference if we don't come to Asshai before the next day breaks."

"If it won't make any difference, then you can take half--if not for yourself, for the babe."

Dany agreed to this with an indifferent nod, unable to bring herself to tell him that she was afraid that even if they did reach the city--which seemed more fact than fable--all their toils might have been for naught. She couldn't recall the last time she felt Rhaego move within her. The thought darkened her thoughts. Perhaps it would have been kinder to let the _kos_ kill him, quickly, than to have let him starve, slowly, within his own mother's womb. Jorah might have left her service with honor and found another way home to his beloved Bear Island. And she…

She would rather die here, in the Red Waste, fighting for her life…her child's…Jorah's…than live a hundred years or more with the crones.

The silver fell, and Dany with it. She was unhurt, she told Jorah in steady tones when he practically tumbled from his own mount in his distress for her, though it didn't matter if she was well or not, if Rhaego was already dead. A thought flickered through her mind that if he was but a corpse entombed in her body, then the silver had been her only remaining link to her husband.

Yet she voiced no protest when Jorah said they would make camp, the implication plain that they had not, after all, consumed the last of their supply of horse meat. Even that wouldn't matter, Dany thought, for now Jorah's horse would have to carry two riders, and, even if it could manage her additional weight upon its back, and the casket bearing her dragon's eggs along with the bundles of Jorah's armor, it couldn't possibly carry the dead silver's meat, as well. Dany wouldn't have long to live without her husband, his wedding gift, his child. She could almost see them, riding across the night lands to her, Drogo straight and tall upon his steed, as before he fell, Rhaego a man now, tall as his father but more slender of build, copper-skinned but fair of hair, his almond-shaped eyes violet…astride not a horse, but a three-headed dragon.

Jorah staggered off to find wood, brush, anything to build a cooking fire--he had not Dany's stomach for raw horse, he quipped. He'd hardly disappeared beyond the rise of a hill when his voice, crying out her name, pierced the silence of that dead place like a hawk. As if startled awake, the babe leapt within Dany's womb, and she clutched her belly as she hurried up the hill with the vigor of a woman who'd already eaten and drunk and whose delivery was not imminent.

"What is it, ser?" she asked as he sprinted to her down the rise of a higher hill.

Jorah caught her hand, but said nothing till they had reached the crest from which he'd come.

"Tell me that's not a mirage," he puffed out between labored breaths. "Tell me I haven't gone _mad_."

Dany followed the direction of his gaze, and for a moment thought she was, indeed, seeing things that were not there, as she had imagined Drogo, Rhaego, and the dragon. She blinked, and clutched Jorah's hand.

"You haven't gone mad," she replied.

No more than a few miles ahead of them, out of the red, barren earth, dark against the hazy blue sky, rose the stone walls and parapets of a city.  
 ** __**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dany and Jorah may need food and water, but a comment will suit me just fine. ;) Thanks for sticking with this story and for all the lovely feedback you left for chapter three. It's a pleasure to share this story with fellow Dany/Jorah fans!


	5. City of Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany and Jorah get a moment to catch their breath--before a certain event steals it away again.

"Dothraki did this, didn't they?"

The sound of Dany's voice just behind him startled Jorah; neither of them had spoken since they passed through the crumbling gates of the city, and the absolute silence was so oppressive that he'd all but forgotten she sat astride the horse he was leading down what once must have been the high street. His fingers tightened on the bridle, and he glanced back at Dany, for a brief moment comforted by the realization that he was not, indeed, the only living soul in this sepulchral place. But her gaze did not touch him, her violet eyes instead reflecting the ruin of a temple before them as she continued in a tone as empty as the streets and the spaces that lay beyond these stone walls.

"Dothraki plundered this city and enslaved its people. Just like my husband's _khalasar_ did to the Lhazareen."

"So it would seem, _Khaleesi_."

Immediately Jorah caught his slip of reverting to the old title she'd requested he not use, but as Dany apparently hadn't noticed, he didn't trouble with making apologies.

As he walked on, guiding Dany's weary and skittish mount around piles of rubble, he remembered the day to which she referred, when she'd first borne witness to the Dothraki style of warfare--destroy and dominate, in every conceivable way--and been so horrified by what she saw that that she denounced their ways and, with the authority of Khal Drogo, denied them the rights granted to warriors by centuries of tradition. Jorah wondered that she could speak so dispassionately now about what once distressed her so, especially as it had turned out to be the incident that started them along the path that ended here.

Even more, he wondered that she could find it within her to think about another time and another place at all. _He_ must focus entirely on putting one foot in front of the other and walking on, though his knees were like to buckle under the weight of despair that _this_ place held nothing that would help them; for it held nothing at all.

"Do you know the name of this city, Ser Jorah?"

Not _nothing_ , Jorah amended. _She_ was here. Together till the end, whether she wanted him or not.

Fingers slackening on the reins, he dropped back a pace, so that he shambled along beside her. "My map was drawn by traders, to whom only the coastal cities are of consequence. Few are so adventurous as we to brave the Red Waste of Essos."

"We shall have to add it, then. And give it a name."

"What will you call it, my queen?" Clearly, she already had one in mind.

" _Vaes Tolorro_."

"City of Bones?" Jorah translated her Dothraki. No wonder Dany hadn't noticed--or minded--when he called her _khaleesi_ ; she was thinking of herself as such once again.

"The stone is all white," Dany said, "and without the muscle and skin and organs and soul, it puts me in mind of a skeleton."

Jorah hadn't needed her explanation; his voice had pitched in question not because Dany's reason for naming the city this weren't self-evident, but that, after so adamantly separating herself from the people who had rejected her, she chose to re-align herself with them. Why now, when presented with the epitome of the brutality _she_ had rejected? Did she not see that what they had done here, however long ago, had effectively killed her, too?

The horse, which had been plodding along silently but for its labored snorts of exhaustion, suddenly wickered and broke into a trot. Jorah pulled back on the bridle, until he spied the animal's quarry: a trough beneath a fallen gutter. No sooner had his eyes touched that than he also noticed, in the center of a courtyard--

"A well!" Dany cried, looking back over her shoulder.

Although he appreciated the first smile that had bloomed on her face in more than a fortnight, Jorah couldn’t bring himself to return it as he strode toward the well. After the disappointment of finding the city abandoned, he didn't have the heart to hope that the well would not have run dry. Even when he peered down into it and saw his murky face and the sun over his shoulder reflected up at him from the dark depths, even when he heard the splash of the bucket as he dropped it down into the well, he steadied his speeding pulse with the thought that the water would be putrid.

His pessimism, however, did not win the argument against his thirst. Without hesitation, he plunged a hand into the bucket--oh _gods_ it was _cold_ \--and cupped his palms to his mouth. His eyes closed involuntarily as he felt the liquid fill the cracks in his lips and wash over his thick, dry tongue and down, so refreshingly, into his throat.

"Is it good?" came Dany's voice at his side; in her eagerness over the water, she'd dismounted without his assistance.

"Taste it for yourself," said Jorah, dipping both hands into the bucket again.

She drank from his cupped palms, and he laughed. Because her lips tickled his skin. Because _she_ laughed. Because his thirst was, at last, quenched. Well--not _quite_. He drank again, and so did Dany, until they had emptied the bucket, so he lowered it again, and brought it up again, and they gulped and guzzled and drenched their clothing and choked themselves and laughed about it and laughed even harder when Jorah splashed Dany rather than drink and harder still when Dany grabbed the bucket, stretched up on her toes, and poured the remainder over Jorah's head, which he obligingly bent to allow her to reach, and he thought it was well that there was no one left in Vaes Tolorro to see a queen and her knight behave like children or mad people.

"If I may respectfully disagree with you, _Khaleesi_ ," he said, sometime later, "I'm afraid your name for this city is not so suitable as we first thought. There are people here now--two people who are no longer in danger of becoming skeletons because we have found food and water."

They sat with their backs to the well and a crackling fire before them as the shadows lengthened around them in the courtyard, and shared another bucket of water as well as a feast of figs, grapes, peaches, pomegranates, and olives they'd found on the trees that grew in abundance in the neglected gardens.

"This is true." Dany popped a fig into her mouth as if to emphasize his point. "But surely you must agree that _City of Fruit_ is rather less poetic?"

Jorah swallowed almost an entire peach and reached for another. "And rather too obvious. If we put it on a map, more travelers may come and devour all our fruit."

Dany giggled, and Jorah's heart leapt in his chest at how very girlish and lovely and charming and perfect her laughter sounded in duet with the low rumble of his own chuckle, which he could not suppress. For a moment he indulged himself with the illusion that this was how it was between them, though he knew they were merely shattered and giddy with the relief that they had survived their ordeal in the Red Waste.

"It is auspicious, is it not, ser," said Dany, her smile softening into a gently contemplative one before their laughter had quite ceased to echo off the courtyard's stone walls, "that the stallion who mounts  
the world will be born in a place that came under the dominion of his father's people?"

Jorah watched her fingertips trace the curve of her belly and wondered whether she was following the path of her babe's movements, recalling the sensation of it beneath his own palm. He sighed at the intrusion of reality, and the serious turn the conversation had taken. That was always the way of it; he'd loved to laugh with Lynesse, too, but it hadn't lasted.

"I suppose that is one way of looking at it, my queen. Though I shouldn't wish to see King's Landing, or any city or village or holdfast in the Seven Kingdoms, come to this…" And it would, if Dany brought war to Westeros.

"Nor I, Ser Jorah," she replied, in a tone that said she was slightly offended by his implication that she craved the destructive show of power of a Dothraki horde. "What is the point in conquering people if there are none left to rule over? Or, if there are, only people who hate the conqueror and wish him ill--or actually _do_ him ill?"

The sadness and regret in her voice were so unmistakable that Jorah knew she must be thinking of the Lhazareen woman, Mirri Maz Duur, who had killed rather than cured Drogo in retribution for the abuses she and her people had suffered at the hands of his conquering _khalasar_.

"No," Dany went on, with a small shake of her head, "I would have my son show mercy to those who fall under his power."

Jorah was glad his mouth was full to stop him from telling her what a naïve view this was. Dany's mercy, after all, had given Mirri Maz Duur the footing to play the _khaleesi_ false in the first place. But there was time yet for Dany's philosophies on the rule of the conquered to mature; she'd proved herself to be a fast learner when it came to adapting to new ways of life. He needn't lecture her now, when they were both exhausted and a good way yet from being fully recovered--especially Dany, who soon would be recovering from another exhausting event.

His mind leapt to what she'd said earlier, about Vaes Tolorro being an auspicious birthplace for Prince Rhaego.

"You wish to stay here, then, until you deliver the child?"

Dany took a drink, and swept her fingers across her chin to wipe away the water that dripped down it. "We’re in no state to travel onward. We are two, with but one horse between us."

"Soon to be three."

"My time grows nearer, and we still have no true knowledge of how far away lies Asshai." Lines crossed her young face as she stared into the fire, remembering. "I can endure much, ser, but I cannot risk giving birth in the circumstances we've just escaped. Nor can I gamble with the life of my newborn babe by carrying him into them."

Jorah wondered when Dany's child would be of an age that she _could_ take that gamble with his life, but now was not the time for that argument. And he couldn't deny that settling, with only her, held a measure of appeal, even in a City of Bones. Perhaps in time she might grow comfortable with the love he bore her, and even learn to return it…

Her small hand closed suddenly around his as it rested on his knee.

"I am truly sorry, Jorah--I do not wish to ask it of you, but I shall need you to attend me when my time comes."

"Of course, my queen." He returned the clasp of her hand and took the other in his, too, as much for his sake for hers as he confessed, "Though I know nothing of what to do."

Dany gave him a tremulous smile. "That makes two of us."

Jorah gave her hand another squeeze, but she she pulled it from his grasp. His disappointment was brief as he felt the callused pads of her fingertips on his cheek, gently drawing his face to her, followed by the whisper of her lips across his skin. In vain he tried to convince himself that it was his anxiety of his impending role as midwife that made his heart hammer and the blood pound in his ears.

But when Dany drew back, he did ask, rather breathlessly, "Do you know how much longer it will be?"

Her smile became a little more confident. Playful, even. "At least not until I've had a bath."

She'd noticed a rusty copper tub overturned outside the courtyard, and Jorah found himself tasked with dragging it into the circle of their fire and filling it, bucket by bucket, from the well. As he helped her into the water, and then back out again when she had finished bathing, the sides of the tub being too high for her to manage unaided in her pregnant state and the bottom slippery, he thought that if he had not already been awarded his knighthood for valor in battle, then he deserved one for his virtue in averting his eyes from her nude figure.

Of course, he demonstrated something considerably less than virtue by _imagining_ her naked in the bath, which provided him with another reason than washing away his filth and soothing his throbbing hip to take his own turn soaking in the refreshing water.

If the bath had not cooled his ardor, the image that greeted him when he'd dressed and joined her where he'd arranged their sleeping mats undoubtedly would have. Not the image of her freshly scrubbed skin aglow in the firelight; or of her mane of wet hair hanging over one shoulder, half-braided; or of the clean, belly-baring vest she'd donned; or even of her precious dragon's eggs cradled in the nest of her brightly pattered skirt in the crook of her crossed legs. But by the accompanying realization that her hair was only partially arranged because something had interrupted the task, and that the tendons of her fingers bulged beneath her skin as she clutched the eggs, and that the eyes that peered up at him were wide with fear.

"The gods seem to have taken my joke for a prayer," she said in a pinched voice.

Jorah felt the blood drain from his face, but he knew he couldn't let Dany see his fear-- _he_ , after all, was not the one about to give birth. Mustering as much courage as he had when he leapt into the breach at the Siege of Pyke --dear gods, he _hoped_ breech wasn't apt for _this_ situation--he approached her with a smile.

"You did say after your bath."

Dany's equally courageous attempt at a laugh trailed away into a sob as she curled over belly and eggs with one of the pains. She stretched her hands out to him, and Jorah knelt before her and took them, her long, ragged nails boring crescents into his palms. Beyond that, he crouched paralyzed, with no notion of how to help her in her time of need.

But when Dany's pain passed, so did the fog that clouded Jorah's mind, and he knew what he must do:

Whatever he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews will help Dany and Jorah cope with their upcoming ordeal. ;)


	6. The Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jorah finds himself charged with a duty for which knighthood has left him woefully unprepared: assisting Dany in childbirth.

Childbed, Jorah had always imagined--on the rare occasions the subject chanced to flit through his mind--meant exactly what the term implied: that women labored and birthed their babes abed. They were, after all, confined to their bedchambers for the duration, which could be as brief as a few hours or as long as several days. Wasn't it the most sensible thing that a woman enduring such prolonged pain would wish to be as comfortable as possible during her time?

He understood that Dany might not find a thinly cushioned mat spread over cracked paving stones the most comfortable childbed, but she would hear none of his arguments that she should lie down instead of pacing up and down the length of the courtyard where they'd made camp as she seemed to prefer to do. If he didn't know better, he would have thought her one of the lions of House Lannister, the way she stalked to and fro; she even growled and snapped if he offered her anything, especially advice, or if he tried to touch her. Although now that he thought of it, he could imagine his own kinswomen, the Mormont she-bears, laboring in such a manner, as well. Or he supposed it might just as easily be a behavior suited to the Targaryens and their dragons.

Or perhaps it was simply _female_ , and Jorah was as grossly ignorant about the behaviors of that sex as he was about the specifics of childbirth. After a while, he decided the best course was to shut up and keep a wide berth, to avoid being singed.

As Dany labored into the night, however, her restlessness abated slightly, occurring only between pains. When they came upon her, the dragon changed into a creature as meek as a lamb--though she still adamantly refused to lie upon her sleeping mat. Apart from being surprised and a little confused by the abrupt shifts in her moods, Jorah had no objection when she chose to ride out the labor pangs by putting her arms about his neck and leaning her forehead against his chest, allowing him to knead the small of her back with his fists until they stopped.

Until it seemed that they _didn't_ stop, and then, suddenly, he found himself standing with his mouth agape as the woman who had flown into a rage that he'd fallen asleep with his arms around her and accidentally touched her intimately in his slumber stripped off her skirt, flinging it away from herself as if it had caught fire. With a bellow, she dropped to her hands and knees on her sleeping mat, her fingers curling around two of her dragon's eggs; her gaze fixed on the third as she rocked back and forth, distended belly brushing the ground.

At last he understood the indignities suffered by laboring women and why husbands were banished from birthing rooms; mankind would never be perpetuated if men routinely saw their wives in this state, grimacing and grunting, drenched in sweat, their displays of nakedness inspiring no lust whatsoever. Yet he didn't-- _couldn't_ turn away, not only because Dany needed him, but because he was equally fascinated by the process unfolding before him. For a girl who had barely reached her fifteenth name day and who, hours before, claimed to know nothing of childbirth, Dany appeared to be acting on a primal instinct where her knowledge failed. She was clearly in agony, yet she seemed not the slightest bit afraid of what was happening to her. She retained control of her body.

"Jorah…" she panted. "The baby's coming…I think…Can you…look?"

" _Look_?" he repeated, stupidly.

"Can you see…his head?"

Jorah was not one to faint, but he felt the nearest to it he'd ever come as he contemplated her request. He sidled stiffly around behind her as a man in a dream.

"Do you…see it?" Dany gritted out from between her clenched teeth.

He tilted his head slightly to peer down at her upturned arse. Strange how earlier he'd had to force himself _not_ to look, but now could hardly bring himself to do it. Surely no knight ever had a stranger request from his queen.

"I…I don't know…I think…perhaps…"

" _Look, Jorah!_ "

At once he dropped to his knees for a better look, and peered into the entrance to her womb. "Yes, I see…" Bizarrely, a chuckle thrust itself from his throat as he raised his head. "Prince Rhaego appears to have a full head of hair, my queen!"

Dany, too, let out a puff of laughter between breaths and spared him a glance over her shoulder. "What color?"

Jorah looked again. "Black."

"It was fair in my dream."

A deep frown tugged at her features, as if this in some way disappointed her, but then her back arched and her head dropped as her belly contracted, so the grimace might not have had anything to do with her preference for her child's hair.

Nevertheless, Jorah rubbed her back and offered her what encouragement he could. "I believe babies are often born dark of hair, only for it to lighten later."

He had no idea where or when he'd come by that information, or if there was any truth in it, but there it was, in the forefront of mind as if it were fact.

"He takes after his father, for now," Dany said, and this appeared to give her strength. "Help me up?"

Still clutching a dragon's egg in each hand, she pushed up as Jorah lifted her off her knees, supporting her more or less on his lap as she squatted just above the third egg.

And pushed.

From his position behind her, Jorah couldn't see much of what was going on. His hip was on fire as she used him as a makeshift stool, and he heard himself groan in unison with her as she bore down with the contraction of her abdominal muscles. How long this went on, he wasn't sure, but after a while Dany shifted in his arms, resting one of her hands on his thigh--she'd dropped the eggs--as the other reached down to touch between her legs. He looked over her shoulder just in time to see her palm cup the dark, rounded head that was emerging from her body.

"That's it, Dany!" He tightened his arm around her and dug his heels more firmly into the ground despite his bad hip. "Your son's almost here!"

She actually smiled at him as she caught her breath before the next wave of pain gripped her. Another push delivered the shoulders, and shortly after that the wet, bloody little form slipped from her body into her waiting hands.

Unable to support her weight and his own any longer, Jorah collapsed onto the ground; Dany fell softly back against his chest and cradled her newborn babe, who was still connected to her by the cord and heralded his own entrance--it _was_ a boy, which Jorah had doubted though he'd humored Dany's trust in the crones' prophecy--with a shrill wail. As Dany babbled with incoherent joy, counting fingers and toes, Jorah observed that Rhaego was all limbs and length without any plumpness to him, so that he wondered if it was due to the state of near starvation in which Dany delivered. But then he decided the babe was like a newborn colt or a newly hatched dragon, which was to be expected considering his parentage. Still, not exactly a glowing endorsement of Dany's declaration that her son was _beautiful_. Perhaps beneath the blood and mucous and curd-like substance that coated the infant's wrinkled skin, which Dany seemed not to care coated her, too.

But then the babe demonstrated a remarkable sense of strength by lifting his head to peer through bleary, almond-shaped eyes at his mother--and then at Jorah. And the knight found he didn't care about bodily fluid, either. He reached out a hand to lightly stroke the cheek which was covered with fine hair, and through the prism of tears, he saw the child as Dany saw him. A fine, beautiful prince.

At some point, he got up and cut the cord and, less pleasantly, helped Dany deliver the afterbirth and dispose of it. He fetched water to clean mother and child, and a blanket to swaddle Rhaego along with Dany's abandoned skirt and the strips of torn shirt he'd made for bandages for his own wound to catch her issue of blood. He picked a few more peaches, noting that the sky had turned a gentle pink just above the tops of the crumbling white city walls, which meant they weren't far from time to break their fast--and Dany must be ravenous after her long night of labor. He certainly was.

When he returned to them, he found that Dany had removed her vest so Rhaego could suckle at her breast. She made an awkward attempt at sitting up and shifting the child to one arm so she could eat, but this only resulted in his mouth coming unlatched from her nipple and protesting loudly. Dany moved back into the position in which she'd previously reclined, grumbling that she'd seen Dothraki women accomplish all manner of task while nursing their babes, and usually on horseback, too; Jorah assured her she'd get the hang of it and, in the meantime, he would feed her peach slices.

If the birthing process had been decidedly un-arousing, she now ate sensuously, her lips closing around his fingers, teeth and tongue lightly raking over his skin as she took the fruit into her mouth, juice oozing out as she bit down into the soft fruit. After she finished, Jorah sucked the juices--along with, he imagined, the sweeter taste of Dany--off his fingers. He watched Rhaego nurse, fascinated not by Dany's breasts being bared to him--at least not entirely--but by the very act of a child taking nourishment from its mother, and that the babe who had come shrieking into the world was consoled and contented simply by closing his lips around her nipple.

As one would be.

Jorah's face prickled warmly with the thought, and he became suddenly aware that Dany's eyes were on him now, instead of on the child in her arms. To his relief, when he tore his eyes from her breast, he found her smiling gently at him.

"Thank you, Jorah. You were wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better midwife."

"I did little, my queen. _You_ were the one who was wonderful. I think you would have managed just fine without me."

"But I'm very glad I didn't have to. I can't imagine Drogo--"

She caught herself mid-sentence and looked away. Jorah's chest swelled more than it had from her earlier compliment at Dany's husband being weighed against _him_ and found wanting. But he saw a tear slide down her cheek, and felt a stab of grief for her that the joy of giving birth to her firstborn was tempered by the recent loss of her husband, and chastised himself for his own selfish, petty ambitions. He even mustered a measure of sorrow for the man who had not lived to see his healthy, perfect _khalakka_ \--or his _khaleesi_ who made such a radiant mother. But there was a larger measure of envy that even in death, Drogo had what Jorah did not.

"I hope that's not a strike against my manhood, my queen," he said, "that I am proficient in a realm so dominated by women that your lord husband would never deign to enter into it."

"Indeed not," Dany said, blinking back her tears and even laughing a little. "You are truly my knight." Her eyes twinkled. "Although if you ever find yourself in need of money, you have a new service to offer."

Jorah snorted. "If only I'd known it before I ventured into the slave trade."

He'd meant it as a joke--a poor one, granted--but Dany regarded him seriously. "If you had chosen differently, then I would not be here at all. Rhaego would be dead, and I'd be in Vaes Dothrak…or poisoned by an assassin. I cannot help but believe the gods were guiding you to me all along."

Even if it hadn't been for the guilt he carried that no assassin would have come near her in the first place if not for him, Jorah still would have been made queasy by the idea that his life had been ordered by the gods. That the shameful deeds he'd committed hadn't truly been his choices at all. That he'd been stripped of his honor and all that was his by the right of his birth in order to bring about someone else's destiny.

It was, frankly, exhausting to think about--and he yawned hugely at that moment, as if to prove it. He felt the energy that had carried him through the birth seep out of him, weariness settling deep into his bones, especially the injured hip. When had he last slept? He couldn't remember exactly. Sometime before they had arrived in Vaes Tolorro. Days ago.

"I must sleep, my queen--and so should you. Do you need anything? Are you in a great deal of pain? Although I fear there is little to be done for that."

"It's a bit better since he began suckling." Dany looked at Jorah for a moment, a tenderness in her violet eyes which he could not discern in light of all that had passed between them of late. "I feel after all my labor, I deserve to be kissed."

Jorah wanted, very much, to kiss her. And not just because he'd loved and longed for her for months, but because in this moment it seemed instinctive that he do so; he _would_ kiss his wife after she delivered his son. He leaned in to her, cupping her face in his hand, though she tilted her face up to his entirely of her own volition.

 _Not your wife. Not your son._ He caught himself a breath from her lips.

"Would you be kissed by me, Daenerys? Or by Drogo?"

She bowed her head, and whispered, "I don't know."

Sighing, Jorah pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead, allowing himself the small indulgence of tracing a fallen lock of hair back from her face as he did so. When he stood, he was somewhat satisfied to see that Dany looked as disappointed as he felt, but that was little comfort as he stretched out, alone, on his own sleeping mat while she lay embracing her babe.

Just as his eyelids were drooping, a flash of red in the corner of his field of vision made them snap open again.

"A comet, my queen," he said, pointing to the deep blue sky just above the sun. "Now _there_ is an auspicious sign for the birth of the stallion who mounts the world."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it through that chapter, you deserve a kiss as much as Dany does. Jorah will be happy to oblige…if you'll take a moment to let me know what you thought. ;) Thanks to my readers for faithfully following this story and for all the comments and kudos. Y'all are the best part of writing this fic.


	7. On the Mend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany has given birth, but it's Jorah who needs to be looked after--and their fractured relationship.

Dany emerged from the ruined temple of Vaes Tolorro and blinked against the daylight's assault on her eyes after having grown accustomed to the dim within. Nevertheless, the sky beckoned her gaze upward--specifically, to the fiery red body that burned directly above the white hot disc of the sun.

"Wait there, my queen," Ser Jorah's voice drifted to her from across the courtyard, and her eyes flicked from the comet to her knight just in time to see him he put aside the rusty long-handled tool he was using to break up a plot of earth for a garden and limp toward her. "I'll help you carry those."

To be sure, the three dragon's eggs were so large for Dany's small hands that in order to carry them all at once, she had to cradle them in her arms against the wrap of boldly patterned cloth that secured her suckling babe to her breast.

"Isn't that why you helped me make this sling for Rhaego?" she asked her slowly approaching knight. "To allow me the use of my hands and freedom of movement while I nurse him, and nurse him again, and nurse him yet again, all day and all night?"

If there was one part of motherhood for which Dany had been unprepared, it was the frequency and duration with which her babe suckled. The first few days following his birth had been so consumed with feeding him that she'd been sure she wasn't doing it properly, until Jorah reminded her that highborn ladies wouldn't employ wet nurses if caring for infants weren't onerous.

"Yes, Your Grace," he said, "but not so much freedom that you overtax yourself. It is but a week since you gave birth. Your lying in should have continued for weeks had you given birth with midwives in Westeros."

And so she should have been even more exasperated by the midwives' constant hovering attention than she was by Jorah's. She bit her tongue against the rising retort that of the two of them, _she_ was the more able-bodied for the toil required to make this dead city fit for living. Indeed, since she'd pushed Rhaego from her body and nursed him with her own breasts, she felt as strong as she ever had, despite the broken nights' sleep.

The same could not be said for Jorah, whose face, even after a week of water, fresh fruit, and shade, remained pale and drawn. Yet he would hardly sit still, though his injured hip clearly pained him as he moved about in ceaseless activity. It brought to mind Drogo's stubborn refusal to allow his own wound time to heal--a thought which, even more than the demands of her newborn child, made Dany's strength flag.

When Jorah met her on the temple step, she relinquished two of the eggs to him, but clutched one in both her hands against Rhaego's sling as they made their halting way back to their camp in the courtyard. They'd thought to make one of the abandoned houses habitable, only to discover those in the vicinity full of bones of the unburied dead. Dany's name for the city was more apt than they'd originally realized.

As they walked, she turned her eyes once more up to the comet. It had risen on the morn of Rhaego's birth and shone there, unwaveringly, day and night, ever since. Though Jorah had pronounced it an auspicious sign under which to be born, Dany had heard the undertone of skepticism in his voice; her knight of House Mormont was neither a superstitious man, nor a deeply religious one, and for her part, she'd been too occupied with the significance of her child himself and all he required of her, to give much thought to messages written in the heavens. Now, however, with naught to do but nurse her babe and think…

"Have you ever known a comet to linger like this, Ser Jorah?" she asked. "It seems almost to hover directly over the city. Like a beacon."

"The dense forests of Bear Island have not fostered a house of stargazers," he replied. "What seems passing strange to me may be well known to a maester."

Dany nodded, and, looking down at the babe snuggled against her chest, smiled. Even in light of the other portents attached to Rhaego's birth, it seemed impossible to believe that her son, whose puckered lips had slackened around her nipple, the tiny mouth just agape as he slept with his head pillowed against her breast and one hand drawn up to hold his earlobe, as was his habit, would one day grow up to be the stallion who mounts the world as foretold by the _dosh khaleen_. He was so small and helpless--despite what his ear-piercing cries might indicate.

They passed beneath an awning of woven rushes Jorah had erected in one corner of the courtyard for a shelter. Dany relinquished her egg to him, and he gently placed it, along with the other two, on the ground beside the cradle. He'd scavenged it, more or less intact, from one of the houses; Dany was grateful for a place to lay Rhaego, though at first she'd done so with slight reluctance, imagining the truth which Jorah did not tell, that he'd had to empty the cradle of some dead babe's tiny bones.

"He sleeps so contentedly," said Dany when Jorah returned to her side help her unwrap the cloth that bound her son to her. "It seems a shame to risk waking him by moving him."

"If he does, I'll soothe him to sleep again," said Jorah. "I seem to possess nursemaid skills in equal measure to my midwifery ones."

It was true. When Rhaego woke in the night to nurse, he did not tend to fall asleep at Dany's breast as he did during the day, when her movements lulled him to sleep in the sling. After several sleepless nights that had left them as near to madness as their hungry and thirsty journey through the Red Waste, they'd discovered that being laid on Jorah's chest had an almost immediate calming effect on the fractious child. Dany teased the knight that it must be the hair, which her chest, thankfully, decidedly lacked--though Jorah informed her that on Bear Island, a hairy chest was a prized trait in a woman--and she tried not to remember how comfortably _she_ had slept in Jorah's arms that first night of their journey when they'd accidentally fallen asleep together, his strength so reassuring, his heartbeat so steady…

Rhaego stirred but did not fully awaken as Jorah deftly swaddled the babe and transferred him to the cradle. Dany looked on as she laced up her vest, charmed for a moment by the image they presented, her newborn child seeming even smaller nestled in the crook of Jorah's muscular sword arm. However, the warm feelings gave way to a cold stab of regret that she would never see her son enveloped in his father's powerful arms, then to nauseating guilt when a doubt flitted through her mind that a Dothraki father would be as attentive to his own son as Jorah was to another man's.

Undoubtedly, within the _khalasar_ , Drogo would have left the childrearing to her as well as the childbearing, or to the slave women. But what if they'd found themselves in exile, just her and Drogo? Would he have eschewed the boundaries imposed by his culture on the sexes as readily as Jorah did, for the sake of wife and babe?

It was fruitless to think about, she concluded with a sigh, for a _khal_ never could find himself in such a position as this. Dothraki didn't exile, they executed, and Drogo would have died before facing such disgrace. And died, he had.

Dany knelt beside the cradle and busied herself arranging the eggs around it as she'd taken to doing: one on either side, the third within, at the head, as if to crown the little sleeping prince with the protection of House Targaryen and the noble creatures Aegon the Conqueror rode to win victory over the Seven Kingdoms.

Out the corner of her eye, she noticed Jorah watching her. Thankfully he kept his mouth firmly shut. The first time he'd seen her do this and she told him the reason, he'd barely contained a snort.

"Perhaps I'd better lay my sword across the cradle if you worry for the babe's safety," he'd said. "Or better yet, I'll sleep at the foot of it, sword in hand, where it may actually do me some good."

Dany had flushed hotly at his mockery, but then Jorah _had_ positioned his sleeping mat thus, blade unsheathed at his side if not in hand, and she hadn't been able to fault him for lack of attentiveness to her or her child, even if he didn't perceive the importance she placed upon the eggs.

"I suppose they could be a weapon in their own right," he'd said later, in his own unyielding way of making apology. "They're hard as rocks, and could break a man's skull if you gave him a hard enough blow with one."

That wasn't the sort of protection Dany imagined the dragon's eggs could give Rhaego at all, but she hadn't argued with Jorah, unsure whether she entirely understood her fixation herself. She knew only that the eggs had held a strange fascination for her since Illyrio Mopatis gifted them to her on her wedding day, that she'd wanted them as she labored to birth Rhaego, and that now she couldn't bear to tuck them away in their casket, because she felt they deserved greater honor than that. Several times each day, between Rhaego's naps, she carried them from his cradle to the temple and placed them upon the altar which had been stripped of its idols, where they stood under the watch of the red comet which beamed down through a high broken window. She performed this ritual to her three as dutifully as the devout prayed to the seven. Let Jorah think her a foolish, superstitious child for it--or a madwoman. Perhaps it would put him off her, and make her stop impossibly and unfairly comparing him to her sun-and-stars and finding that Drogo shone less bright in memory than he had seemed to do in life.

And yet…When Jorah had laid Rhaego in his cradle--taking care to adjust its position so that the afternoon path of the sun would not beam light into the child's face--and ensured that Dany was comfortably situated herself and had ample food and water, he did not join her for a noon meal, but excused himself to continue the ground-breaking he'd interrupted to tend them, Dany realized that she wanted distance from her knight no more than she wanted his affection. She wanted his friendship, as she'd enjoyed it when he'd attended to her in the _khalassar_. When they arrived here in Vaes Tolorro, she'd thought they'd found their way back to that. But now it seemed now they'd only shared the joy of slaked hunger and quenched thirst and of ushering a new life into the world.

Dany knew she was to blame, at least in large part, for the new tension between them, by asking Jorah to kiss her after the birth. Though _he_ had been the one to refuse the intimacy that time--thank the gods he'd recognized her confusion and turmoil and not taken advantage of her in her weakness, like the true knight she knew him to be-- his demeanor toward her was, nonetheless, like that of a rejected suitor, tinged with resentment. The worst of it, Dany thought, was that she couldn't even muster the attitude of haughtiness with which she'd previously armored herself against his unwanted attentions. For now, not only had she seen his longing, but she'd shared in it.

Though, as she watched him thrust the spade into the ground, breaking up hard clods of red clay and grimacing each time his wounded hip bore the brunt of his weight, she wondered if his bodily injuries compounded the ache of his bruised pride. There was little enough she could do to mend his heart--or his leg, if it came right down to it--but perhaps she could assuage the hurts of a knight who felt unmanned before his queen, and that might make it easier for him to cope with the rest.

She checked that Rhaego was still sleeping soundly in his cradle, and, adjusting his dragon's egg guards, pushed herself up off her mat and crossed the courtyard to Jorah, determined to make things right between them--as was the lot of women.

At once, he stopped his work and asked, "How may I serve you, my queen?"

"By laying aside that spade, ser, and lying down upon your sleeping mat so I may tend your wound."

Jorah's lips opened soundlessly, but he recovered quickly from being caught off his guard. "I thank you for your concern, Your Grace," he said, with a slight deferential-- _dismissive_ \--bow, and Dany watched the tendons flex in the backs of his hands as his fingers tightened around the tool. "But I assure you, my hip is on the mend. There is no need for you to put yourself out for my sake."

Dany had no wish to add insult to injury, so she bit her tongue against pointing out that if he were truly healing, his limp would not be more pronounced than ever, his face would not always be lined with the tension of battling pain.

"Kneeling beside you is hardly _putting myself out_ ," she said, with a smile she hoped communicated to him that she did not view him as weak. "I can do that quite easily now I am no longer great with child."

But the knight's brow remained furrowed, seeming to tug his entire face into an even deeper frown. "I am also concerned for Your Grace's modesty. The location of my wound requires--"

The laugh with which Dany interrupted him was genuine. "You wish to protect _my_ modesty when I was near naked in your arms as I birthed my child? Or do _you_ blush, ser?"

His face _was_ red. "Your attentions are simply unnecessary. I have no fever. My wound is an aggravation, but it will not kill me."

"But it may cripple you!"

Dany's distress bubbled over at last at his glib mentions of infection and death. So much for not humiliating him. He wasn't even looking at her now, his eyes locked on his fingers wrapped, white-knuckled, around the spade handle. But she couldn't recall her words, nor could she stop the ones that followed. She caught his chin in her hand, his beard prickling her palm, and drew his face up so that his eyes must meet hers.

"You are a _knight_ , Ser Jorah-- _my_ knight. Do not allow your pride to turn you into a fool. Let me return the good you've done me."

She felt his strong jaw tighten against her hand as he ground his teeth. Then, to her surprise, he nodded, took her hand in his, and squeezed it lightly before releasing it.

"As you say, my queen." He leaned his spade against the crumbling white wall, and gestured for her to lead the way back to their camp. As she turned to do so, he added, "You talk like a mother."

The corner of Dany's mouth twitched upward in a smile as at the hint of grudging amusement that slipped into his gruff tones.

It promptly fell again when Jorah took down his breeches--just enough to reveal his hip, but not so low that she saw anything but the growth of wiry hair that branched out from the thin trail that ran downward from his navel, though she hardly noticed even that for struggling to keep control of herself as her mind leapt back to when the knight had uncovered her husband's wound to reveal it black and festering. It was true enough that Jorah had staved off infection--but only just. Clearly, he'd neglected himself of late, and the level of activity he'd maintained in the weeks since the _arakh_ sliced into him and prevented the wound from fully knitting itself back together.

Jorah's scavenge of the city for supplies had yielded up a small cask of wine that somehow had been overlooked when the Dothraki plundered the city. They'd indulged only in one celebratory drink apiece, but Dany plied him with it now. Wishing she could indulge in a dram of liquid courage herself, she took a needle and a length of horsehair and stitched muscle and flesh back together as best she could, praying that her ministrations would not actually make him worse. She applied salves of her own making from herbs found in the gardens of the city, as she had seen Dothraki women do, though she hadn't troubled herself to learn which herbs they used and so had no idea whether the ones available to her in Vaes Dothrak would actually reduce his pain. Most of all she admonished him to take a well deserved and too hard earned _rest_.

To her relief, the next several days saw steady improvement in Jorah's hip and an even more dramatic change in their interactions. The barriers that had come between them since he'd admitted his love seemed to have been removed, as if with the clothing they'd shed--though the scales were still tilted decidedly in Jorah' s favor, his injury not requiring him to bare quite so much as Dany's labor had. Still, whatever was responsible for the change, it was enough to restore the open companionship they'd shared in the _khalasar_.

"Who do you think lived here?" Dany asked one evening as she bathed his hip in warm water while the city walls cast long shadows over them.

"The same people who live everywhere," he replied. "Men and the women they loved, and the children they made together…Don't you feel their ghosts here with us, among their bones, _Khaleesi_?"

His words, paired with her old title, ought to have made her grieve for what those who'd once been her people had done to these innocents, but instead it piqued her curiosity about the man who'd uttered them, who carried love and family with him as his ghosts. Perhaps it was an effect the dominant position she maintained over him as he lay beneath her ministering hands, half-clothed, but she was emboldened to pursue that line of thought.

"Tell me of the women you loved, Jorah."

Surprisingly, he did not argue, though his gaze drifted from hers, the red light of the comet reflected in his shadowed eyes. "There was only one."

"But you were twice wed."

Jorah's eyes flicked back to her."And you share my experience of having been married for reasons other than love."

"Yes, but in time I grew to love Khal Drogo." She watched him as she said this, half-expecting Jorah to flinch or give some facial cue indicating jealousy. But he revealed nothing. She put aside her wet rag and patted his pale skin dry with a fresh cloth. "Did you not come to love your lady wife?" She knew they'd been married ten years before the third miscarriage ended her life as well as the babe's.

"I felt her death keenly," Jorah admitted, his voice a little taut with emotion, and Dany watched the roll of his throat as he swallowed. "Though I would not say my heart was broken, nor my soul split asunder. If I loved her, it was as a companion. I had no passion for her, nor she for me. Perhaps if the children had lived…"

"That was when I knew I loved Drogo. When I discovered I carried his child. I feel him with me whenever I hold Rhaego in my arms."

As if he'd understood what she'd said, Rhaego began to fuss in his cradle. By the time Dany finished rubbing one of her ointments into Jorah's skin and bandaged him, the child had worked himself into quite a state.

"What's the matter, my sweet prince?" Dany crooned to him, kneeling beside the cradle, rocking it. "You just had your supper."

She started to scoop him up, but Jorah touched her shoulder. "Allow me? You've been so busy tending us that _you_ haven't supped."

By the time Dany had settled with a plate of fruit, nuts, greens, and a rabbit Jorah had snared, he'd quieted Rhaego, who lay with his downy head tucked into the curve of Jorah's neck, violet eyes open but contentedly drowsy.

"It's a great loss that you were never able to hold your children," Dany said softly. A great loss for the children, she meant; though she smiled at the tender picture Jorah made with her son, she grieved for his unborn babes who had perished before they could know his loving embrace.

And then her heart caught in her throat so that she could hardly swallow her meat as it occurred to her for the first time that unless she married again, very soon--which seemed an unlikely, if not impossible scenario--Ser Jorah would occupy the void left by Drogo in Rhaego's heart. While that would be no poor thing for her son, Dany could not think what that might mean for her. Or what she was willing for it to mean. She swallowed her food and took a long drink of wine.

"You had no children with your second wife, either?"

"Two weeks' wedded bliss weren't enough to see me so blessed," Jorah said, bitterly. "After that I could give Lynesse nothing to satisfy her. It sickens me to think of her disgust had I given her children. Or what would have become of them in my exile."

From the snatches of the story Dany had heard of Jorah's second marriage, she reckoned Lord Hightower's daughter to be a nasty piece of work. But she must have _some_ redeeming qualities, or Jorah would not have gone to such drastic lengths to keep her, so Dany asked, "What did you love about her?"

Jorah had been smiling down at Rhaego as the babe's toothless mouth opened in a yawn that more closely resembled a silent roar, but the smile faded as his large callused fingers stroked the back of Rhaego's where some of the hair had fallen out--what was growing in to replace it _was_ light--coaxing him to sleep. After he had done, Jorah carefully rose and carried Rhaego back to his cradle.

"I've wondered since if it wasn't madness I felt for her, not love," he replied at last, his back to Dany as he knelt by the cradle, ensuring that Rhaego was truly settled. "But she was young, and fair of hair, and I thought the Maiden herself could not be more beautiful, much less any mortal woman. She gave me her favor and a tourney and a fiery passion." He turned to her, then, eyes catching Dany's, glittering with sadness and hope. "But not her friendship."

She knew what he meant to say--that in _her_ he'd found the companionship he valued from his first wife, as well as the passion of his second. But whatever warm feelings might have been kindled in her toward Ser Jorah had been as good as doused by the only truth she could hear, which was that Lynesse Hightower _looked a bit like her_.

Dany excused herself, saying she was tired, and lay on her sleeping mat, one hand on the nearest dragon's egg, staring up at the comet which glowed red in the sky like flame.

Even if she could overlook the fact that Jorah was only a knight, exiled from a family of middling rank and no fortune, she was Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and mother of the stallion who mounts the world.

She would be no man's replacement for another woman.


	8. From the East

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jorah is restless, but visitors to Vaes Tolorro bring change he was perhaps not looking for.

_At last_ , the child slept.

Rhaego had been fractious since the afternoon, inconsolable despite all Dany's attempts to soothe him. Only when she offered her breast did he cease to cry, but the moment he stopped suckling found him in a worse state than he'd been in before. There had been tears on the mother's part as well as the babe's, and finally Jorah had sent Dany to rest while he took his turn at pacifying her son without the aid of breasts. He'd offered her a word of encouragement , dredged up from some remote corner of his brain that retained knowledge that might not even be true, that sometimes infants imply cried for no reason at all and through no fault of the parent.

Secretly, he believed that it was their fault, that the babe had picked up on the anxieties of the adults. At least, the anxieties were what Jorah blamed for his own sleeplessness even while he lay quite comfortably with the warm, deeply breathing Rhaego curled on his chest.

Dany, on the other hand, did not appear to be suffering a similar affliction. Her heavy lids had closed over her violet eyes almost the instant she lay down upon her sleeping mat. Jorah was sure she was truly asleep, because in the dying light of their fire, he could just make out the periodic twitches of her muscles beneath her blanket.

He sighed and turned his head to gaze at the embers of their fire, which, glowing in the darkness of the courtyard, seemed to mirror the red comet above in the night sky. It had been easy, so very easy, to pretend for a little while that he was home, that Dany was his wife, and Rhaego his son--easier in the latter case, at least, since Rhaego didn't protest being in his arms. But games could not last forever, any more than summer could, and the unavoidable truth that faced them was that they had decisions to make about their future. Decisions which, if Dany and Rhaego were his, Jorah would have made long before now.

But they were _not_ his, and neither were the decisions; those were Dany's to make, as his sovereign, and, as her servant, Jorah could but advise and then await her bidding.

If only she would bid him do _something_. Anything. Instead, they'd talked in circles for days, ever since Jorah decided he'd had enough of doing nothing but rest and have Dany treat his wound and occasionally mind the baby so she could rest.

More than once she'd found him back in the garden plot which she'd made him abandon to tend his injured hip, and protested, "Ser Jorah, are you certain you're well?"

"I'm well enough, Your Grace," he'd insisted on each occasion, and she'd let him be--for a while.

Eventually, however, the reassurance had been belied by a grunt and a wince when he'd overtaxed himself after a long day's labor, and Dany had urged him once again to leave off with his plans for the garden.

"I am only a little fatigued." He'd told her. "That's nothing compared to what you and I both will feel when we've nothing to eat when winter comes."

"Nothing to eat? These trees--

"-- won't bear fruit all year round."

She'd drawn in a sharp breath of indignation at that, and Rhaego had begun to fuss inside the cloth that bound him to her chest. "Of course they won't. But we don't have to worry about that for months yet."

"Winter's not as far off as you might think, my queen." Gods, he sounded like a Stark of Winterfell, he'd thought. "Not when you're marking time in planting and harvesting vegetables."

He'd been keenly aware of Dany watching him break up a few clods of red dirt with the tip of the spade, her silent inspection making him more conscious of the labor he was performing than of her skepticism as to the ability with which he performed it. He had no fear of hard work--if it was a knight's work, a lord's work--but this was the toil of a common field hand, and it made him feel the degradations he'd suffered for Lynesse, which he thought he'd put behind him when he came into the Targaryens' service. Perhaps he might have found comfort in the thought that he was only doing what was necessary to ensure their survival, but when Dany did finally speak, it was not a word of gratitude for his labors.

"Do you know anything about planting and harvesting, Ser Jorah?"

With a snort of bitter laughter, he had let his spade fall and turned to her. "No more than you, Your Grace. Hunting and fishing are more the thing on Bear Island. But as we most assuredly are not on Bear Island…"

To his surprise, Dany had bowed her head. "I know you expected to be well on your way there now, if Khal Drogo had lived to lead his _kahlassar_ across the Narrow Sea. Now you are farther away than ever."

He might have been home long before that, had he taken his pardon back to Westeros and left the assassin to do his work in the Western Market. Whether it hurt more to think of the home he'd given up for the woman he didn't have, or to have her trust him so completely in ignorance of his near treachery, he couldn't say; nor did he know whether the tears that hung heavy in the eyes she'd lifted up to him were compassion for him or grief for her husband and her own shattered hopes of crossing the poison waters with her Dothraki army. The latter, most likely. In either case, the young queen must know something of the frustration Jorah felt in their current position of stasis.

"My queen, as your adviser," he'd said, shrugging off the mantle of guilt he'd allowed to fall onto his shoulders; he had _not_ betrayed her in actuality, and it was deed that mattered, not intent, "I think it prudent to say that it's high time we set a course for our future. We've recovered our strength, you've borne your child. It seems we have two paths before us. One is to finish the journey we started--"

Dany's braid had bobbed as she'd given her head an adamant shake. "We can no more strike out into the Red Waste now than we could before. We still have no idea how far it is to Asshai. We are still three riders with one horse."

"I could go." He'd gone on, even as Dany shook her head. "I could take enough food and water to last me a week, ten days…and if in that time I don't come upon Asshai, or a band of traders…"

"Or bandits, or wild beasts, or gods know what other perils…No, I couldn't allow you to risk yourself."

A good knight would not wish to see his queen distressed, as Dany clearly was, and Jorah _hadn't_ wished it. But at the same time his heart had leapt that _his_ queen placed so high a value on his person. They'd regained their former level of intimacy since he'd submitted to her wish to tend his wounds, and that, combined with this current display of emotion made him think he might have reason to _hope_.

His eyes had flicked to the sling wrapped around her, he babe cradled to her body. "Not even for your child?"

Dany had looked down at her son, and slipped her fingers inside the wrap to caress the babe's soft cheek. "If you die in the Red Waste, then there is no hope for Rhaego."

Jorah had forced himself not to react to this disappointed hope as he had to discovering this city abandoned, and in ruins. After all, on closer inspection they'd found that fresh water flowed through the City of Bones, and that fruit trees flourished there.

"Then you see we must consider how we may survive here," he'd said.

But this course, too, Dany had rebuffed, shaking her head in bewilderment. "I don't know…I can't think…Either way it seems that all hope of the Iron Throne is lost to me."

And she'd turned from him, retreating to the temple to do whatever it was she did in there, alone, with her dragon's eggs.

In the days since, she'd begun to spend long hours within, during which Jorah had little with which to occupy himself, apart from half-hearted attempts at planting old sprouting potatoes found in a root cellar, and to think of how, in the process of escaping from the Dothraki, and surviving the Red Waste, and delivering her child, and caring for the babe, he'd almost forgotten that his companion through it all was not merely a girl he loved called Dany, but Daenerys Targaryen, who she was, even now, on a quest for the Seven Kingdoms.

Well, not really forgotten, exactly--she did have a way of mentioning, every so often, that she was heir to the Iron Throne and that her son was destined to be the stallion who mounts the world. But he could hardly recall the last time he had strategized how that might come to pass, which made him wonder: had he given up hope of anything but saving her life? Had he ever truly hoped that Dany would succeed? Or had he only hoped _for_ her, a desperate man who laid all he had at the feet of a girl who had even less? Like Dany, he didn't know, couldn't think.

Nor could he lie here any longer. Carefully, sliding one hand securely beneath the baby's rump and the other against his neck, long fingers cradling his head, Jorah sat up. Rhaego never stirred even as Jorah awkwardly, without the use of his hands, and noisily--grunting, as various joints cracked--pushed himself to his feet.

For a moment he stood at the foot of the cradle, making no move to place the child in it, indulging a sudden compulsion him to hold Rhaego snugly against him. He breathed in his sweetness, and kissed his feathery hair, and thought how strange it was that he should do so. He wouldn't have said he bore any especial love for the child, even though he was Dany's--though neither did he feel any resentment toward him for being Drogo's in equal measure. It simply seemed impossible to hold Rhaego and not express tenderness toward him. He wondered if it was so with all babes, or if he was more affected by this one's being Dany's than he wanted to own.

And he wondered how much greater the feeling would have been if he'd held his own sons or daughters. If he ever would know that feeling. At the moment, that possibility seemed as unlikely as seeing Bear Island again, or of putting Dany on the throne.

He lay Rhaego in his cradle, arranging the dragon's eggs around and within as Dany would have done. Almost at once he realized how chill the night was. He hadn't noticed as the babe slept on him, cozy as a cat; his shirt was damp from where he'd sweat from the heat Rhaego produced (he hoped that was the only moisture Rhaego had anything to do with). Bed seemed as uninviting now as it had before, so Jorah plucked his blanket off the ground and draped it over his shoulders, deciding that a walk about the courtyard might relax him enough to find sleep.

However, as he crept past Dany's sleeping mat, he paused to look down at her sleeping form. She lay on her side, one arm curled beneath her head. For some reason he'd expected to see the childish roundness of her cheek that had still clung to her when her brother gave her--sold her--to Khal Drogo as a bride, which he saw every day in Rhaego's face as he grew plump on his mother's milk. How had Jorah not noticed, in these weeks--more than a month now, he supposed--spent solely in her presence that her lovely face had grown leaner, hardened by their journey and matured by motherhood? He saw less of Lynesse in her, more of the women of his own house--if Mormonts could be beautiful.

She looked like a Targaryen.

Her breasts, on the other hand…Swollen with milk and bulging behind the laces of her horsehair vest, they were fuller and more sensuous than ever. Jorah found his fingers uncurling at his side as he recalled that hazy dream of sleeping at her back and filling his hand with the soft roundness of her breast. Would he ever caress her again? Awake, consciously, not as part of a dream? Would the queen ever welcome her knight's touch as a lover?

No sooner had the thought flitted through his mind than Dany's eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright on her sleeping mat, her hand darting out to clutch his.

"Your Grace," Jorah stammered, the blanket slipping from his shoulders to the ground as he recoiled--to no avail--from her iron grasp and the horrifying thought that she'd only feigned sleep, that she'd known all along he was watching her, and was angry. "I--"

"My dragons!"

Before he could blink in disbelief that she was scarcely aware of him at all, Dany leapt to her feet and threw Rhaego's sling over her shoulder.

"Daenerys, what are you doing?"

She scrambled to gather her eggs from their positions as sentries around her child and put them in the sling, knocking into the cradle and disturbing Rhaego's sleep in the process.

"They're not safe here," she said in a strange, low voice that did not quite belong to her, without giving her fussing child so much as a glance. "My dragons are not safe."

"They're not dragons, my queen," said Jorah as he caught her arm and helped her to her feet, "only dragon's _eggs_. And they're perfectly safe here. You were only dreaming. Go back to bed, Dany."

She shot him a fierce glare and shook his hand from her arm, then bolted through the darkened courtyard toward the shadowy outline of the temple. Jorah moved to follow, only to be arrested by the cries of the infant. He looked back at the cradle. He couldn't leave the babe, but neither could he let Dany go stumbling alone through the dark to the temple; there might be something to her dream, after all, perhaps not a threat to her dragon's eggs as she believed, but the more likely threat to her person.

Sighing at the ludicrousness of it, he scooped up Rhaego and unsheathed his sword, following after her as quickly as he could in the dark with a child in one arm.

The moon was in its new phase, so he could scarce see a thing as he wound his way by memory through the narrow maze of a side street that lead to the temple. It would have provided an excellent cloak of secrecy if there were any threat, had not Rhaego's screams as he bounced in Jorah's arm eliminated any chance of remaining hidden. A rooftop slipped by to reveal the comet, and in its faint reddish glow he just made out Dany's silhouette, coming to a sudden halt in the temple plaza, before he ploughed into her. And, as he gaped up at the sighed before her, he well understood why she halted.

Three shadowed figures, one in a red lacquered mask that gleamed in the comet's light which now seemed sinister, stared down at them from the backs of great humped, long-necked beasts.

"We followed the _shierak qiya_ ," said one man in Dothraki, no doubt taking note of Dany's garb.

"The Bleeding Star," said the next in Valyrian. "It led us here."

The eyes of the third flashed behind the mask as the rider pronounced, in the Common Tongue and a woman's voice, "To _you_ \--Mother of Dragons."


	9. Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Dany is not entirely truthful to the three visitors about her identity, Jorah helps her play her new role even more convincingly.

"I think you are mistaken," said Dany to the woman in the red lacquered mask--Quaithe, her name was, and she claimed to be a priestess from Asshai.

They were all gathered around the campfire, the three travelers breaking their fast though it was not near dawn. Dany would have liked a goblet of the wine they offered, but when Jorah, who was seated very close to her, his hand protectively at her back, refused, she remembered how his wariness had protected her from the assassin's poison before and settled for water.

"I am the mother of this child," she went on, indicating with a tilt of her head where Rhaego suckled modestly inside the cloth sling tied about her, "but I know nothing of dragons."

 _Except for the dragon's eggs hidden beneath Rhaego,_ she thought. The eyes peering out from the slits in Quaithe's wooden mask seemed to burn through the cloth. Dany tried to convince herself that it was only her anxiety talking, the remnant of the dream she'd woken from at almost the same moment as these three arrived, of dark strangers carrying off her dragons--or children, she couldn't remember which it was now. The timing of their arrival boded ill, but unlike in her dream, their skin was pale as milk, and she remembered she'd heard the Dothraki speak of "milk men" of the east. At least, the _men_ were fair; gods only knew what aspect the woman's red lacquered mask covered. Dany shuddered at the possibilities. But the three hailed from the port city of Qarth, of which Jorah had never heard, and had watched the comet since it appeared on the morn of Rhaego's birth and finally concurred to follow it wherever it led, which was here. Dany was inclined to believe that must be a good omen.

Of course, she thought, wrapping her arms more securely around Rhaego at her breast, fair could be foul, and there were those who had no scruples about the lives of babes in arms. Robert the Usurper had slain her brother Rheagar's children, and would have murdered her child as well, if not for Ser Jorah. And of course the _kos_ had intended to take Rhaegar the moment he slid from her womb and throw the helpless babe to the dogs. So Dany followed her knight's suspicious lead and proceeded with caution, revealing enough that she might solicit help from the travelers from Qarth without placing herself in harm's way should they _not_ prove trustworthy.

"We are refugees from a Dothraki _khalasar_ , you see," she told them. "My husband and I."

Jorah's fingers tightened where they rested at her waist, and Dany was herself surprised by this lie that fell so easily from her own lips. But it made her feel safe, somehow. If she couldn't reveal herself to be a queen under the protection of her knight, she could at least present a picture of a woman in the company of a man with a vested interest in her well-being. She allowed herself to lean back a little against him, tucking her head beneath his chin, and she didn't mind when Jorah's hand relaxed and slid down to rest on her hip, his fingers tracing gentle circles on the skin bared between vest and skirt.

"Which _khalasar_?" asked Pyat Pree, the man who had greeted them in Dothraki, whom the light revealed to have strikingly blue lips which made his fair skin seem ghastly white. Now he spoke in the Common Tongue. "Who was _khal_?"

Dany opened her mouth to answer, but Jorah's deep voice rumbled against her back before she could. "Once it was forty thousand horses strong. Then the great Khal Drogo fell, and his _kos_ battled for dominance. Dany and I fled during the ensuing chaos."

At first she was annoyed at him for speaking for her--and for his use of the diminutive of her name, though she had introduced herself thus to the travelers--but then it occurred to her that if she was to convincingly play the role of a married woman, she must defer to her "husband." Perhaps this hadn't been such a well-thought plan after all.

She noted Xaro Xhoan Daxos, the other man, bald and wearing jewels in his pierced nose, watching them through shrewdly narrowed eyes, his disinterest in them poorly feigned.

"And the child," Pree persisted, "it _is_ yours?"

"I bore him here," Dany answered, for Pree had addressed her, and matters pertaining to childbirth were certainly within her domain, even if she was acting the deferential wife.

Pree's eyes flicked to Jorah. "But not _yours_."

Jorah tensed at her back, but said nothing, so Dany touched his knee lightly and took that question upon herself, as well. "The child's father is Dothraki."

"Dothraki breed bastards with their slaves as they breed horses," said Pree with a snort, lifting his wine goblet to his blue lips.

The same indignation that had come over Dany in Lhazar, when she'd seen the _kos_ raping the Lamb Women, gripped her now at this slur against the ways of the people who had been her people--and, by extension, against her husband. Apparently Jorah sensed her ire, because his arm around her flexed, holding her back--for she'd sat up, and squared her shoulders, preparing to stand and give them away by unleashing her hot rage, which caused Rhaego in his sling to lose his hold on her nipple; he frantically rooted to find it again.

And anyway, she reflected as she swallowed a drink of water, it was true enough that the Dothraki used their slaves for pleasure as often as for any other service. And she was a fool if she thought her beloved Drogo had amassed a _khalasar_ of forty thousand horses without being as merciless as those who fell under his power than any of his _kos_. _You can't claim them all, Khaleesi,_ Jorah had cautioned her as she'd done what she could to alleviate the suffering of the conquered Lhazareen. She'd denied it then, but began to see the truth of it now. How long would Drogo have tolerated her compassionate interferences, which had sowed the very seeds of contempt that led to even her dearest ones turning their backs on her? He might have conquered Westeros for their son, but he never would have allowed her to rule his _khalasar_.

She sank back against Jorah once more, her posture as defeated as a former captive's should be, and became aware of Rhaego's frustrated cries. She guided him back to her breast, and when he was suckling hungrily once more, she said, "But they don't throw newborn colts to the dogs that follow the horde."

"The gods have been kind to spare you," said Daxos, who had been silent up until this point but for his introduction of himself. His eyes glinted in the fire like the jewels in his nose. "I wonder, to what purpose? It would seem they delivered you from your captors only to strand you here."

"If they were stranded," Pree said, his lips curving in a smile that seemed genuine enough, but which Dany could not bring herself to trust because of the unnatural color, "they are no longer. We three of course have with us additional camels. I am certain my companions welcome you to travel with us back to Qarth, where you may find passage back to the land from which the Dothraki have torn you."

"Your offer is very kind--" Dany began, but a squeeze of Jorah's fingers reminded her that she ought to leave the talking to him.

"As you can imagine," Jorah said, "we fled with little but the clothes on our backs--"

"And the sword you had in hand when you met us?" Daxos said.

"--and no way to repay your generosity."

"That is well," said Pyat Pree, "for my priestess friend Quaithe believes in money no more than do the Dothraki, Daxos here is a merchant prince, and has no need of it, and I--I seek the payment for kindness which only the gods can give."

Dany craned her neck to look up at Jorah, shooting him a warning look not to commit to anything without first conferring with her. His gaze did not so much as flicker to hers, but Dany let out a slow breath of relief to hear him say, "Of course my lords and lady of Qarth will understand that I would deliberate on your offer."

"But of course." Pree drained his wine goblet, then uncrossed his legs and stood and stretched his lithe body in a single fluid motion. "My _friends_ ," he said to his companions, and Dany noted the weight he gave to the word, and the twitch it evoked from Daxos' bejeweled nose, "we have kept these weary parents too long from their sleep."

"No, stay," Dany blurted out, the sense of urgency with which she had awoken from her troubled dream returning in full force at the notion of being expected to rest under the watchful eyes of these three--particularly the pair that peered from behind the silent woman's mask, which Dany still sensed would see the dragon's eggs beneath the now sleeping Rhaego if only she looked long and hard enough. "I am too awake now. I would walk."

Jorah's hand trailed lightly up her back as he stood, then he reached down to help her to her feet. He kept hold of her hand as he guided her back along their earlier path to the temple. It was for the sake of their masquerade, Dany knew, but she nonetheless found herself comparing it to the other times when a man had held her hand. She couldn't recall Drogo ever doing so, which made her sad, though she remembered Viserys grasping her roughly by the wrist and dragging her through streets of the Free Cities crowded with beggars and cutpurses. She'd felt like an animal on a leash, where Jorah's large fingers wove between her slender ones, giving her hand a gentle squeeze every now and then which reassured her more loudly than any words he could have spoken that she had both his protection _and_ his respect; that once they had their privacy, they would return to their rightful roles of queen and knight, and he would hear her and advise according to whatever lay in her best interest, but defer the authority granted her by her station.

They slipped through a side entrance to the temple, but did not speak until Jorah had barred the door and checked that the others were locked, as well, though it seemed a futile gesture considering how most of the windows that lined the place had been smashed by the Dothraki when they stripped the temple of its idols and other treasures. Still, the lead that once contained the panes remained, giving them the illusion of privacy, and at least they had the advantage of being able to see if anyone was spying on them.

Though the windows let in enough of the wan predawn light for her counsel with Ser Jorah, Dany went to the altar and lit the braziers. She lifted Rhaego from the sling where he'd lain atop the eggs like a young dragon guarding his unhatched brothers in their mother's nest. Then, giving the babe to Jorah to hold, she set about her ritual of placing her eggs in the niches in the old wood that had once held the likenesses of gods but seemed made to hold her dragon's eggs beneath the watchful eye of the red comet-- _shierak qiya_ , Pyat Pree had called it, the Bleeding Star.

In spite of her mistrust of them, Dany was intrigued by the words the priestess Quaithe had spoken, of the comet heralding her as the Mother of Dragons. What could that mean? Dany ran her hands over the hard, rounded shapes of the eggs as she had run her hands over her own belly, as though searching for the stir of life within.

"If it please Your Grace," Ser Jorah's voice broke into her musings, "we may have but little time to discuss our plans before our visitors become curious as to what we do here."

"Perhaps they think we keep tryst," Dany quipped, but her cheeks burned when she glanced over her shoulder at Jorah and met eyes that spoke his wish that this were true. She quickly turned away again, lifting her gaze up to the comet. "You don't trust them."

"No. I don't. After your own people turned their backs on you, and the Lhazareen woman who owed you her life betrayed you by taking Khal Drogo's, I am disinclined to trust anyone. Least of all those who read meaning into the patterns of stars. Yet…"

"We have no choice but to go with them," said Dany, a little more tersely than her knight's tone had warranted; he was merely cautious, she knew, but his disdain of those who believed in signs and wonders made her feel mortified, childish, in regard to her thoughts about the comet's relation to her child or her dragon's eggs or her crown. Or all three.

"For days we've talked of little but that we cannot linger forever in this dead city," she went on, "nor can we cross the Red Waste with any certainty of our lives. Perhaps these three will carry us into peril, but no more than we certainly face in Vaes Tolorro or in the dessert, and perhaps, if we are lucky, even less. It is a risk I think we must take."

"That is my thought, as well, my queen," Jorah replied, and his agreement made Dany forgive him for his unknowing slight. "And if it came to a fight, I have no fear of Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Pyat Pree or the priestess of Asshai."

Dany smiled as she drew nearer to where he leaned back against the fallen rail of an altar and held out her arms to reach for her son. "I have the utmost confidence that the noble knight who slew my two fearsome khas can protect me from any foe."

Jorah inclined his head in acceptance of her compliment, but looked troubled as he rubbed his hand across his stubbled jaw. "My concern is more for what we shall do upon reaching Qarth. We not only have no means of repaying our rescuers, but no money for lodging, or passage elsewhere."

To Dany, who had gone through her whole life without money, this was a less troubling prospect. "We might send word to my old friend Illyrio in Pentos. He would never withhold aid from me, should I ask for it."

Jorah's gaze flickered from hers, and when he spoke, his tone was measured, careful, which she couldn't understand. "We'll still require food and lodging in the meantime. I could sell my horse, but I would be loath to part with such a fine animal--"

"Indeed, you must not. A knight is no more knight without a horse than without a sword." She added, her voice dropping as a lump formed in her throat. "And he was a gift to you from Khal Drogo, for saving my life."

She held Rhaego more tightly and kissed his head, blinking back tears at the thought of parting with one more tangible tie to her husband--or the reminder of what her faithful knight had done for her.

"What about your sword?" Dany asked. "Or the service of it?"

Jorah looked for a moment as if she had struck him, and then a dark look crossed his features.  
"How would my sword serve _you_ , Your Grace, if I lease it into the employ of others?"

At first Dany didn't understand why he would find this suggestion so deeply offensive, but then she  
remembered that he had been a sellsword, before, to support his wife Lynesse before she left him. It must have humiliated him.

"Have we nothing else of enough value to put a roof over our heads or fill our stomachs for a little while?" she asked.

"We did joke once about my midwifery skills," Jorah said, but he looked her direct in the eye, clearly not of a mood for jests. " _You_ have something, Daenerys. Something of great value."

The suggestion made her breathless, and she found herself moving instinctively toward her dragon's eggs. Jorah _couldn't_ be serious. He wasn't thinking, it was his wounded pride talking, lashing back at her for throwing the indignities of his exiled life in his face. Which, though understandable, would never do.

Drawing herself up to full height--which, admittedly, was rather insignificant in the company of Ser Jorah, she said, "I could no more sell one of my dragon's eggs than I could sell Rhaego. We have taken our journey in steps thus far, and the gods have watched over us and provided in their time. We shall go to Qarth, and see how our path unfolds before us. It may be that our traveling companions prove worthy of having the truth of our story."

"Until then," Jorah said, pushing off the altar railing and stepping toward her, "we are refugees of Dothraki captors. Husband and wife…"

He stood close now--so close that Dany had to tilt her head back to look up at him, so close that she felt the brush of his boots against her skirt. Nearer, perhaps, than was proper, or necessary, but it didn't make her uncomfortable enough to draw back, as his hand went up to caress Rhaegar's head where it rested against her shoulder.

Then his fingers uncurled to graze her bare arm, and his other hand found its way to her waist, settling on the curve where her hipbone had been once again revealed by her shrinking belly. Dany's heart began to beat faster with anticipation; before she could move or rebuke him or even think what was happening, he said, "I suppose we'd better act the part," and bent to kiss her.

At first her mouth parted in a tiny O of astonishment at his boldness, at his breech of the tenuous boundary that had separated them since he declared his love. Then she noticed how soft his lips were, and how sweet--he tasted of the peaches they'd eaten for breakfast, mingled with the tang of sweat and masculinity, the latter which Dany hungered for most of all--and she found that _she_ was the one grown bold, sweeping his lips more fully open with her tongue, the better to taste him. Jorah's sharp indrawn breath of surprise was immediately followed by a low sound of pleasure in his throat. He deepened his kiss in turn, his hand drifting up from Dany's arm to cup her chin in his roughened but gentle palm, his long fingers weaving themselves into her hair where her braid began at the nape of her neck.

He shouldn't be doing this, Dany thought. She certainly shouldn't allow him to continue, let alone encourage him to do so. But she didn't want to stop him. She _liked_ Jorah's kisses, liked the lovely physical sensations they stirred within her, and most of all she liked the way they made her feel cherished and adored--like a _queen_ , as she had felt the night she ate the heart and bathed in the Womb of the World and Drogo had her outside beneath the stars and before the _khalasar_. She hadn't thought she wanted Jorah's love, but if it made her feel this, when for so long now she'd felt nothing like a queen, perhaps she needed it. And she wasn't content to simply _be_ touched as they prolonged their kiss; she wanted to return his caresses, to let his beard scratch her fingers, to press herself against his strong chest and feel whether his heart beat at the same frantic, unmeasured pace as her own.

But she could do neither. For, as soon as she began to move to do so, she remembered her arms were occupied, their bodies separated by the sleeping form of her son between them.

Drogo's son.

In spite of this realization, she did not break the kiss abruptly, but closed her lips together and pressed them to Jorah's. He responded to her signal in kind, kissing her one, twice, thrise more, each kiss more delicate than the one that came before, though to no less effect than when their lips and tongues had glided together more passionately, until at last nothing touched them but the warmth of his breath. Even then he bent over her for a moment longer, his forehead resting against hers, his hand that had cupped her cheek now grasping her hand as it rested on Rhaego's back. Dany had to close her eyes against a powerful swell of emotion, and she couldn't help but wish that it was Drogo's hand that held hers, Drogo's love that had calmed and given her confidence about the decisions she had just made about her course of action, Drogo who would be at her side as she pursued it.

But then a voice in the back of her mind whispered doubt that such a great _khal_ as her lord husband would have given himself over to such a tender moment at all. She opened her eyes, intending to look on the face of her knight of Westeros to see if there was anything written upon it of what made him so different from her Drogo.

As she did, a dark shape caught the corner of her eye, and she whirled around, scanning the row of windows to her side for a glimpse of whatever--or _whomever_ \--she had seen.

"What is it?" Ser Jorah's voice was accompanied by the scrape of his sword sliding from its scabbard as he stepped around her, putting himself between her and any threat, real or imagined.

"Nothing. Only a shadow, or a trick of the light."

Truly, she'd seen naught at all, even before the knight stood in her way, but that did little to lower Jorah's guard, once raised, or to put Dany's mind at ease. She comforted herself with the thought that if anyone _had_ been spying on them, they would have seen nothing but a passionate moment shared by a man and woman, which could only lend credence to the story they'd spun to protect themselves.

As they exited the temple, eggs and child riding in her sling again, Dany found herself reaching for Jorah's hand, as much to reassure herself of the protection he gave her by virtue of being her knight, as to appear as husband and wife to the three from Qarth. When she looked up at Jorah, she saw that though his eyes flicked to and fro, scanning for anything untoward, the corner of his mouth quirked upward in a cautious smile that could only mean he was pleased to hold her hand in his.

"Only acting the part," Dany said, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. The gesture was meant to remind him to have a care, that a few kisses didn't mean she returned his feelings--but instead it had rather the opposite effect.

Ser Jorah Mormont gave a rare, wide smile.

And Dany blushed as she wondered if she'd been a little hasty in thinking him unhandsome.


	10. Naked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Qarth, Jorah struggles to accept certain cultural norms and to balance his public role as Dany's husband with his private one as her knight.

"What is that?" asked Jorah, his head snapping up sharply from Rhaego's cradle as Dany swept through the doorway of the spacious bedchamber Xaro Xhoan Daxos had given them in his palace in Qarth.

Dany stopped in her tracks, her brows knit together, and then glanced down at herself, following his gaze to the swath of dusky violet silk--exactly the shade of her eyes, he noted--that was draped across her slight frame, baring her left shoulder.

And her left breast, as well.

"One of the new gowns Xaro had made for me," she replied, thankfully looking up so that he had her eyes to peer into instead of the temptation of her breast. "His seamstress will have three more for me tomorrow."

Jorah felt his frown tug deeper at the corners of his mouth at her familiar use of their host's given name. He never should have agreed to accept the merchant prince's offer of hospitality. He'd talked himself out of a hundred reasons why doing so would be unwise, but none of them had included the possibility of objectionable foreign fashions.

"Will any of the others cover you?" he asked in a pinched voice.

Her cheeks…and her neck…and--oh gods, it was futile to keep his gaze from wandering downward--her chest flushed pink as her hands went up and, in a self-conscious gesture, drew a section of her flowing silver-blonde hair over her shoulder in a semblance of modesty.

"I expect not," Dany said. "I've not seen one lady in the whole city who's not dressed as I am."

"Why must you be outfitted as the Qartheen? _I_ am not."

Daxos had commissioned new clothes for Jorah, also: tunics and trousers, shirts, doublets, and surcoats in the style of Westeros. While he couldn't deny it pleased him to be attired much less shabbily than he had been in some time, more or less in the manner to which he'd been accustomed when he was Lord of Bear Island before Lynesse had ruined him, a vain part of him regretted that their necessary anonymity prevented his being clad in the symbols of House Mormont. He'd discretely removed his signet ring when Dany told Daxos, Pyat Pree, and the priestess called Quaithe that they were refugees from the Dothraki, and without it his fourth finger felt naked. For all the good not wearing it did; in place of it his finger was encircled by a ring of pale flesh where the rest of his skin had tanned around the signet during its years rest there. He _had_ requested a very fine doublet in the rich green of the forests of his homeland, which he wore now, hoping it and his trimmed hair and beard made him appear at least somewhat more lordly in Dany's eyes than she was accustomed to seeing him.

At the moment, the only emotion in her eyes was amusement. They danced beneath an arched brow--evidently she'd gotten past her earlier embarrassment--and she said, "It's polite to adopt the manner of dress preferred by one's hosts."

"It's also polite to dress in the manner preferred by one's husband," Jorah grumbled.

"I would consider your preference-- _if_ you were truly my husband." Dany gave her hair a little flick back over her shoulder. "Anyway, I'd have thought _you_ would welcome the opportunity to see more of me, ser."

She used his title, but it was spoken in the low tone and accompanied by the smile he'd come to associate with flirtatious moments. Such intimacies had become a daily practice since he'd first kissed her in the ruined temple of Vaes Tolorro, amid the slanting beams of early morning light, and though they'd not been alone together in the weeks of travel, he wasn't certain that Dany's affection was all pretense. While he had been the one, for the sake of appearances, to spread her sleeping mat next to his when they'd made camp, Dany had gone a step further and slipped under his blanket with him; very often in the night he'd half-awakened to feel her body curled against his back, tucking her knees against the backs of his legs.

With all this in mind, he took Dany's remark as permission to appreciate the perfection of that breast--which, if memory served, was the very one he'd accidentally cupped in his sleep, whilst dreaming of her. Strange how, as incensed as she'd been at the time, she now seemed not to mind, even to desire his attentions as a lover. His fingers twitched to touch it again, but he wasn't about to press his luck, not when he was just beginning to enjoy the fruits of his patience. He settled for resting his hand on the smooth curve of her waist, just above where the garment was cinched by a low-slung silver belt encrusted with amethysts--rich clothing for a girl supposed to be an escaped slave, which aroused his suspicion of their host rather than his passion for his queen.

He sighed and met Dany's eyes again, the reminder of where they were and why they were having this conversation in the first place rather spoiling his enjoyment of her beauty.

"I do welcome it," he admitted bluntly, "but not if it means your charms must also be displayed before every other man in the city. Before _Daxos_."

He fairly spat the name, and Dany giggled, bouncing up on her toes to kiss Jorah's cheek and brush an errant lock of his newly cropped hair back from his forehead.

"I don't think you need to need worry about Xaro," she said. "Or haven't you noticed it's not the young _women_ of his household he watches?"

Jorah _had_ noticed the way Daxos' eyes devoured the boys and youths who served him as pages, but the thought did nothing to put Jorah at ease. Unconventional appetites did not mean a man eschewed female company, and Jorah had also noticed that Daxos paid almost equal attention to Dany whether it was to leer at her or not.

"Anyway," she said, turning away with a swirl of silk and perfume, and bent to lift Rhaego from his cradle, "this is practical garb for suckling a babe."

" _Ugh_!"

At the voice, which belonged to neither of them, Jorah and Dany whirled around to see the very host of whom they had been talking leaning in the arched doorway of the room. How long had he stood there? And had Jorah truly been _that_ distracted by a breast that he'd not noticed the presence of another? Yet another strike against Dany's new clothes.

Daxos pushed off the intricately worked masonry and sauntered toward Dany, his mouth twisted in a smirk beneath the long, bejeweled nose that crinkled in disgust. "You would ruin those perfect breasts by nursing your own child like the wife of a common laborer?"

"She _is_ a common woman," Jorah said, though it bruised to imply such about himself, even if it was utter falsehood. He stepped behind Dany and placed his hands protectively on her shoulders. Not for the first time, he wondered if Daxos suspected the truth about her--or rather, that she hadn't told him the truth about herself.

"But she is my _guest_ ," Daxos said, not sparing Jorah a glance. His lips curved in a pleasant smile for Dany. "I would employ a wet nurse for her, should she desire it."

Dany thanked him for his courtesy, but made it plain that she did not desire any woman but herself to suckle Rhaego, even going so far as to refuse his offer of a nursemaid. Jorah was relieved to see her exhibit such a degree of caution; she'd worried him on their journey to Qarth, when they'd first discussed Daxos' unexpected invitation to stay as guests in his palace until they knew their future course.

"Daxos says the blue-lipped speak lies," she'd whispered to him as they embraced beneath their shared blankets, pretending a lovers' _tête-à-tête_. "He says that Pyat Pree is a warlock who drinks shade of the evening to open his mind to demons, and that he will play us false."

"I've often found that people who call others liars are not themselves to be trusted."

Dany's eyes had gleamed at him in the light of the campfire, her full lips curving in a way that made it impossible for him to resist tilting his head toward her and stealing a kiss--which, as it turned out, she willingly gave, one of her small hands resting against his neck as she'd pressed herself flush against him. Jorah had been instantly aroused, and was contemplating whether Dany, who hadn't seemed to mind, was actually aware of his state--which she _must_ be, pushed against her thigh as he was--and whether she might be open to the suggestion of making love beneath the blanket--to lend credence to their claim of being husband and wife, of course. He'd just begun to fantasize about rolling her onto her back and stretching himself over her slender frame, of filling his hands with her small, firm breasts as his lips glided down her neck so he could taste the glistening hollow of her throat, when she pulled her lips from his and resumed their whispered conversation.

"By your own reasoning," she'd said, "I shouldn't trust _you_ , ser. You are forever telling me not to trust anyone."

She'd only meant to tease him about his caution, but the irony of which she was ignorant had not, of course, escaped Jorah. Its effect on his amorous state had been precisely the same as if he'd dived into one of the lakes back home in the dead of winter, and he'd withdrawn from her and their conversation; his guilt and shame had been made all the worse by her bewilderment when he'd rolled onto his other side, putting his back to her, unable to bear the gentle touch of her hand on his shoulder or her whispered apologies for mocking his vigilance, for which she owed him her life many times over.

Eventually, sleep eluding him for his waking nightmares of Dany discovering his betrayal, and because he'd sensed that she lay wakeful and confused beside him, he'd summoned his courage and faced her again. Without apology or justification for his earlier abrupt shift in mood--for how _could_ he explain himself?--he'd resumed their discussion about whether or not to accept the invitation extended to them by Xaro Xhoan Daxos, merchant prince of Qarth.

In the end, Jorah had laid aside his misgivings and agreed that they must. They had nowhere else to go, and he concurred with Dany that, after their dealings with Mirri Maz Duur, a man of business seemed less likely to pose a threat to them than a priestess or a warlock. And, unlike the other two, Daxos was a member of a guild of traders called the Thirteen, who had in their possession a fleet of ships, which, Jorah had to agree, might be a greater boon for Dany than the generosity of Illyrio Mopatis. _If_ she could earn Daxos' favor--or, more likely, match his price.

And finally, there had been the matter of Dany being unlikely to back down from her belief that they ought to go to Daxos' house. Luckily, as a knight, Jorah had ample opportunity to practice turning his liege lords' poor judgments into successes--or at least in circumventing total failures. If he'd not been reasonably confident that he could protect Dany, he would have impressed his own viewpoint upon her.

Nevertheless, he'd been leery of Daxos' sudden interest in Dany, when he'd started out as the most indifferent of the three. Perhaps it was that Daxos had seen in her what Jorah had all those months ago when he'd changed allegiances from Viserys to the Targaryen princess. In any case, he would keep a close watch on the merchant.

The one difficulty he hadn't counted on, however, was the distraction of Dany flitting about in a breast-baring gown. At the moment, he approved of the use she made of it, sitting down on a divan and putting Rhaegar on to suckle right there in front of their host. Jorah snorted at Daxos' open disgust as he backed from the chamber, making a speech about how he hoped it was to their liking, and that if they found anything lacking, his servants would see to it that they had everything they desired."

"We have lived among the Dothraki, and suffered in the Red Waste and a dead city," Jorah said, finding flattery less distasteful upon his tongue when he could use it to mock a man he detested. "We want for nothing in the palace of the great Xaro Xhoan Daxos."

But they did want for one thing, Jorah thought when they were left alone to familiarize themselves with their home for the unforseeable, and his eyes fell upon the bed. The last time his weary limbs had sunk down upon a thick feather mattress with room enough for him to stretch out to his full length _and_ have a pretty young thing to warm it had been at Illyrio's home in Pentos, when he'd been a guest at Dany's wedding. Despite Dany's earlier warmth, it was probably too much to hope that now that he finally had the chance to enjoy comfort and luxury, she would see fit to continue their little charade of being a married couple behind the privacy of closed doors. Perhaps if he pointed out how Daxos had not heeded closed doors this afternoon…

Jorah averted his gaze to the divan, upon which Dany nursed her babe. Too short and too narrow for a man of his height and build, though it would have to do. More comfortable, at least, than the alternative of the marble floor, or the beds he'd made on the hard packed ground of the Red Waste and the uneven cobbles of Vaes Tolorro.

Without meaning to, he heaved a sigh. Hearing it, Dany looked up at him and, quite proficient now at nursing Rhaego using only one arm, she extended her hand, bidding Jorah to come to her. He obeyed, and as his fingers closed around hers and he allowed her to pull him down beside her on the couch, he fancied he felt the caress of her richly sympathetic eyes like soothing purple velvet.

"I'm sorry, my good knight," she said quietly. "I know how little you wish to be here, so far from your Bear Island. Apart from the death of my husband, my greatest sorrow is that I cannot yet give it to you."

Her sentiment was so sincere and unexpected that Jorah was too moved to give much heed to the slight twisting of his heart at the mention of Drogo. He changed his grip so that his fingers laced through Dany's, and with his other hand he stroked her hair back from her face, letting the clean, silky tendrils curl around the backs of his fingers. She smelled faintly of lavender and some dusky aroma he did not know.

"You give me hope of home," he said, his voice husky with the emotion he couldn't quite keep at bay. "That is a great deal more than I have had in some time."

She smiled, and Jorah knew it meant she thought he had hope of home because he believed she would give Bear Island back to him through her victorious conquest of the Seven Kingdoms. When he'd spoken the words, he thought that himself, but now he realized that wasn't what he'd meant at all. He would tell her what _had_ inspired them.

"Wherever you go, my queen, I will follow. Not out of duty, but because I--"

She pressed her fingers to his lips, and Jorah saw that her eyes shimmered suddenly with tears that turned her sympathy to sadness. His own heart grew heavy as he realized that she knew what he intended to say and still did not wish for him to say it. But he'd gone too far to turn aside from the thought now. He needed her to remember that this intimacy that had blossomed between them was so much more than a game to him, that he believed it was so for her, as well, even if she didn't realize it yet. Or that it could be, if she would only allow herself to let it be.

He kissed her fingers, and, catching her hand again, held it against his chest, so that she might feel how his heart beat for her.

"I love you, Daenerys. And I will follow you however far from Bear Island you may lead me, because _you_ are my home."

Dany's fingers felt moist in his--though he wasn't sure which of their hands was sweaty--but apart from that she showed no other sign of being discomfited by his declaration as she had been before. That was progress. He allowed her hand to slip from his grasp and reluctantly dropped her gaze as she turned her head to give her babe due attention as she unlatched his mouth, which had grown slack on her breast as he fell asleep, and put him on her shoulder to burp him.

"Pretty courtly words, sweet ser, but I don't believe you truly mean them."

Jorah blinked at her. _Didn't believe…?_ He stood suddenly as his temper rose, and strode a few paces from her, then turned to face her again.

"There is another way than with your conquering army by which I could return to Westeros. A course that would give me my father's forgiveness, and my honor. At once."

For a moment she regarded him from beneath a crinkled brow, as she considered all she knew of the land that was hers to reign, but where she had never set foot.

"I could go to the Wall," Jorah said. "If I joined the Night's Watch, and took the black."

"Why don't you?"

A bitter taste filled his mouth, and his lips twitched in a smile that matched it. "Why, the same reason you won't go to the _dosh khaleen_ , Your Grace."


	11. Sparks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even as Jorah's suspicions of their Qartheen host are raised, Dany encourages him to lower his inhibitions in regard to her.

Never in his life had Jorah been so relieved _not_ to receive a dinner invitation from a man of wealth and power. He'd worried, when Xaro Xhoan Daxos, merchant prince of Qarth, had given them a suite of rooms in his palace finer than any Jorah had stayed in, and provided them with clothing of a quality above what even many of the nobility of their homeland enjoyed, that their host somehow knew more of their true identities than they'd let on. After these initial attentions, however, Daxos seemed to forget about the ragged pair of refugees he'd rescued from the desert; a serving boy brought supper to their room, which they ate upon cushions on the terrace overlooking a narrow city street, indicating that this was not, after all, one of the rooms reserved for notable guests.

And, as they watched the citizens of the city go to and fro about their evening errands, Jorah also observed that the wealth of this city surpassed any he'd seen in his travels through two continents. In comparison to the Qartheen, Dany's silken gown and jeweled belt were modest garb-- _not_ in the sense that her breasts were chastely hidden from men's lustful gazes. But since he was the only lustfully gazing man at present, he didn't quibble with custom. Indeed, he reclined upon the cushions as they sipped wine and shared a bowl of herbed tomatoes and cheese between them, and allowed himself to enjoy their food and the sea breeze wafting around them and the distant throng of civilization--and, of course, the view of Dany's breast that was afforded to him when he looked up at her as she spoke.

At the moment, she was speaking to the boy who'd just come out to clear away their supper things. "I presume your master has ravens or other birds to carry messages?"

"Yes, m'lady," the boy replied, "Xaro Xhoan Daxos requests me to say that you are most welcome to make use of anything in his household that you have need of."

"So he told us." Jorah sat up and touched Dany's knee as a subtle warning not to say anything further.

But the wine, and perhaps his own apparent relaxed attitude, had already caused Dany to lower her guard, and she missed his signal. Before the boy was even out of earshot--indeed, Jorah observed the subtle slowing of his step, the telltale forward tilt of his head to listen, which only one who had himself been a spy would notice--she spoke.

"I thought I would write to Illyrio in Pentos and tell him where I am. He may have heard about Drogo..." She faltered, for just a moment, but bravely went on. "I would not have him worry after me, when he has always been so kind to me."

She turned her head to smile down at Rhaego, who lay unswaddled on a soft rug, kicking his long, lean legs that reminded Jorah of a colt's and gurgling contentedly as his hands batted at an assortment of bells, reeds, and rattles that dangled from a wooden frame above him. Dany reached out and tinkled one of the bells, which made the babe go still as a statue and stare unblinkingly.

Laughing, she said, "And my old friend must know my joy at delivering a healthy son."

Jorah gritted his teeth together at how much information she'd revealed about herself in those few sentences--the door had only just clicked shut behind the boy--but he bit back the scolding words that leapt to his tongue, which would only reveal more if the boy were listening at the keyhole, as well as provoke Dany. And though slightly alarmed, Jorah was yet too comfortable to quarrel with her tonight.

Tracing a light pattern on her silk-covered knee with the tip of his forefinger, he said, "I thought I might go down to the quay tomorrow morning to look out some word from home. You could accompany me, and send your letter from there."

"Why would I pay for public ravens when Xaro's birds are right here, for my free use?"

Jorah raised his eyebrows.

Dany's face paled as she at once understood. Lowering her voice, she said, "You think Xaro might intercept any messages from us?"

"I think our host has treated us with untoward generosity, particularly in extending us the use of his servants."

She glanced back at the doorway through which the serving boy had vanished. "You think that boy was spying on us? Ser Jorah, that's _too_ careful, even for you. He's a _child_."

"That's the point of spies, Your Grace." Jorah drained his wine, and pushed himself to his feet. "They are most effective if they're the people you least expect."

Dany held out her hand for him to help her up, but did not let go even when she was steady on her feet. "Then I shall accompany go to the quay with you on the morn."

"Of course you will," Jorah replied, giving her hand a little squeeze, and smiling. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone with Daxos in that gown."

More than anything, he wanted to kiss her wine-sweetened, laughing mouth, but he refrained. He felt a bit raw after he'd earlier laid his heart as bare to Dany as her breast was to him. At least she hadn't responded to his second declaration of love as she had the first, though he couldn't help but take it as a rebuff all the same when she gave no hint of her own affections.

Her behavior perplexed him. Why would she accept his kisses--why would she _initiate_ them--if she didn't return his feelings in some small way? Perhaps that was it, that her feelings toward him were not in equal measure to his love for her. If that was so, Jorah would have to show her that however little she loved him at present, if she thought the flame of her affection might in time, it would be enough for him.

All he asked for was a spark. A spark from a dragon was enough to consume a man. Already he was afire from far less.

For now, he released her hand and offered to amuse Rhaego while she penned the letter to Illyrio. Although, when Jorah placed the child face-down on the woven rug, it was Rhaego who provided all the amusement. The babe kicked his gangly legs and dug his long fingers and toes like claws into the rug and rolled himself over onto his back, looking for all the world how Jorah imagined a baby dragon must--though his perceptions _might_ have been influenced by of Rhaego's snorts and shrill blasts of frustrated sound, at which he half-expected the child to yawn and breathe fire. Jorah chuckled at Rhaego's momentary look of surprise at his accomplishment, the violet eyes going round as saucers before they scrunched with his wide toothless grin.

"Did you see that, Dany?" Jorah asked, but he looked up to find her occupied with arranging her dragon's eggs on a table in the corner of the room, as she had done in the temple in Vaes Tolorro. "My queen," he said, "do you think it wise to display your treasures? Our host might see them and demand payment for his hospitality--or penalty for our deceit."

"No one will find them, Jorah" she replied, her voice heavy with annoyance."And they are not treasures. They're much more than that."

Jorah had hoped that Dany's fixation with her dragon's eggs had grown out of boredom or anxiety during their sojourn in Vaes Tolorro. To his dismay, it appeared to have put down deeper roots than that. It wasn't that he begrudged her attachment to one of her few remaining ties to her husband which the wedding gift represented; or rather, he understood that it would be natural for her to feel some attachment to them for that reason. It wasn't even frustration that the value she placed upon them was for some lofty, nebulous purpose he couldn't understand, rather than on their monetary worth--although he _did_ want to take her by the shoulders and shake her when she talked of asking Illyrio Mopatis or, worse, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, for a fleet and an army to take her to Westeros, when she had within her own reach the means to buy one.

No, what troubled him most about her behavior was how very _Targaryen_ it was was. A gruesome image leapt to mind, of her father Aerys, the Mad King, the _Scab_ King, covered head to toe with the open, infected wounds from the sharp points of the Iron Throne, which would not heal because he picked at them incessantly. It had been tragic to watch Dany's brother Viserys succumb to the folly of the madness he'd inherited from his family along with the throne, and Jorah had borne _him_ neither love nor loyalty. Dany, on the other hand…Jorah counted it among his knightly duties to protect his queen not only from her enemies, but from her blood, as well.

The irony was not lost on him that the only person Daenerys Targaryen had to guard her sanity was a man who had himself been ruined by his own brand of madness.

Of course, as Dany had pointed out, he never would have fallen in with her if it had not been for his exile from Westeros. If she was right, and the gods had guided his steps to Essos for the purpose of bringing her to throne, then it followed that his own experience with obsession might have opened his eyes to hers. Though Jorah liked the idea of being the gods' puppet no better now than he had then.

And anyway, he thought, shaking his head, Dany wasn't mad. She was just a girl who'd survived a terrible ordeal and gotten carried away by the notion of signs in the stars and her family's mythology. The only experience he brought her was that which he'd gleaned from the world, and the time he'd walked in it.

"You will be very careful with them?" he asked, sounding as wearied by his own thoughts as he would have been by arguing with her.

And, indeed, Dany replied in a tone primed for argument. "I am no fool, ser."

"I beg forgiveness, Your Grace-- _if_ my words implied such."

In truth, he _did_ think her a bit of a fool if a few creature comforts made her forget her initial wariness of Daxos, and dimmed the memory of King Robert's attempt on her life so that she would send news of herself, which could be so easily intercepted, into the very lands which were most likely to be crawling with Lord Varys' spies.

Jorah took a small measure of consolation from the knowledge that if Dany ever did discover his role as informant, she would be even more dismayed to learn that her _old friend_ had initiated the liaison between him and the Spider. Jorah never had been sure of the purpose behind Illyrio's connection with Varys, or, indeed, whether Varys wanted the Targaryens dead at all--though he hadn't hesitated to pass along news to King Robert that would send assassins their way. But then, _no one_ knew what Varys wanted. Even Jorah had to admit the unlikelihood that Illyrio would knowingly bring harm to Dany and her brother when he'd sheltered them as his esteemed guests and gone to the trouble of arranging her marriage to Khal Drogo. Not that any of that would matter to Dany in light of the simple fact that they had conspired with those in league with the Usurper.

She, of course, remained unaware of any of that--blissfully so, Jorah thought, given her expression as she filled a sheet of parchment with her news. By the time she finished her letter--which Jorah had already determined, regardless of its contents, would never wend its way to Illyrio--her vexation with him had vanished. She joined him on the rug to play with Rhaego for a short time, until the child began to fuss and root for her breast; when she took him into bed to suckle and she saw Jorah start to make up a bed for himself on the divan, she protested.

"That's a dainty couch for a knight of your size."

"It will suit," Jorah insisted. "If not, the floor will."

"But your hip has only lately ceased to discomfort you."

"I will sleep anywhere my queen commands--but I cannot imagine where you propose I should in this room, if not the couch."

"Don't be ridiculous, Jorah, this bed will easily accommodate both of us." She blushed prettily, and peered shyly up at him from beneath her lashes as she added, in a softer tone, "And I daresay we've slept in closer quarters than this."

Jorah let the blanket he'd been spreading out over the divan crumple to the floor, and he even approached the bed, but he demurred out of courtesy. "I only thought that in the privacy of this room, you would prefer not to continue our charade of marriage."

Dany's eyes darted to the table upon which her dragon's eggs stood, then back to him, her lips curving in a half-smile. "As you said, our privacy may be only an illusion."

"Did I say that?" Jorah seated himself at the edge of the bed on the side where she nursed Rhaego, near enough that he might touch her. Though he kept his hands to himself--for the moment.

"You meant it," she said, and the tip of her tongue darting out to moisten her lips was Jorah's undoing.

He cupped her delicate cheek in his hand."Then by all means, let's keep up appearances."

Dany took him quite at his word. When Rhaego finished suckling and gazed up at her with drowsy violet eyes and a milky smile, she slipped out of bed and laid him in his cradle, arranging the dragon's eggs to guard him while he slept as she'd done in Vaes Tolorro. Jorah sat at the edge of the bed, tugging off his boots, when the rustle of fabric behind him made him turn his head just in time to see Dany's gown slide down her body like a waterfall of silk and pool at her feet. He had just enough time to rake his eyes over her before she stepped out of the garment and slid beneath the sheets, and took note of her breasts, smaller and more supple now that she'd so recently nursed her babe, the slight bulge at her middle where her skin had stretched to accommodate her pregnancy, the roundness of her thighs and buttocks. A woman's body now, though her years scarcely numbered greater than when she'd gone to her marriage as a girl. And Jorah's body reacted to it very much as a man's.

Recalling her mortifying reaction when she'd awoken in his arms to his arousal, he turned his back to her and rose from the bed, the marble tiles cool on his bare feet as he worked the fastenings of his doublet.

"Would you prefer I remain clothed to sleep?" he asked, his voice pinched and taut in his throat as he felt within his breeches.

"Hmm? Oh, however you're most comfortable, ser."

That would be stark naked, as she was. However, much as Jorah desired to lie unclothed in bed with Dany, her distraction made him suspect that she was only open to the idea because she expected him to keep a chaste distance between them in the bed. The southern night being warm, he settled for stripping to the waist and climbing into bed with his trousers on for the sake of her modesty--not that the bulging laces hid much.

To his surprise, Dany rolled over to him, draping one arm across his waist and pillowing her head against the fleshy part of his shoulder; the wiry hairs on his chest shuddered with each soft exhalation of her breath against his skin. Slow. Long. Even. He thought she'd already fallen asleep, until he felt the flutter of her eyelashes.

"Dany?"

She pulled herself closer to him, her fingers fitting between his ribs on one side, her breasts spreading around the other, her thigh hooking over his legs. _Dear gods_ , he wished he was naked, too--but he sensed that for all this openness with her body, she wasn't offering herself to him. _Yet_. He could endure tonight's inevitable frustration if he could hope for eventual satisfaction.

"Daenerys."

This time, she responded to his gruff tone and tilted her face up toward his.

"Are you just keeping up appearances?" he asked. "Or…?"

She lowered her head again, but her lips smiled against his skin as she answered, "During our journey, I grew accustomed to having you sleep at my side."

It was enough to make Jorah tighten his arms around her and bless her silken silver hair with a kiss. "You always have me at your side."

"I shall hold you to that, ser," Dany murmured as she drifted off to sleep.

She made good on her word the next morning, holding his arm as they made their way down to the quay. Though Jorah's hopes were further encouraged that Dany had not come to change her view of the previous night's thoughts and actions by the light of day, he found himself unable to fully appreciate their intimacy as his soldier's instincts dominated those of the lover; his eyes, which he wished to focus fully on the queen who might soon be his lady, instead swept the bustling streets of Qarth for any sign that they were being watched or followed. He did at least submit to the leisurely pace she set, and he tried not to hurry her from vendors' stalls whenever she paused to admire their wares, though once or twice he thought a stranger's eyes lingered too long upon them only to look too abruptly away, and he pulled Dany deeper into the crowd, his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was just as possible that Dany drew stares because of her beauty, or the size and foreign dress of her accompanying knight--for he had donned his chainmail for their excursion--but that likelihood made him no less protective of her, and perhaps even more so.

When they passed a jeweler's stall, however, it was Jorah's eye that was drawn by the gleaming trinkets. Dany's fingers curled in the crook of his elbow, and she looked up at him in question as he released his sword to take out his purse, which, though light, contained the remaining coin he'd earned by spying for Varys. An income to which he intended to formally put a stop today.

"How much for the sterling horse brooch?" He inquired of the owner of the booth. To Dany, he added, "You should have something to remember your brave little silver mare who carried you across the Red Waste."

Any other woman than Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah thought-- _or Lynesse_ , came a voice from a darker corner of his mind--would have protested, at least for the sake of politeness, that gifts weren't necessary to buy her favor. She, however, fairly bloomed at the prospect of being given a present, and Jorah was equally delighted to be able to please her in such a small way.

But as he began to haggle with the stallkeeper, Dany interrupted, "If you don't object, I'd prefer the onyx bear."

Jorah's eyes followed the line of her finger to a brooch carved in the likeness of a black bear, polished to a high gloss and prancing on its hind legs as the forepaws clawed at an unseen enemy--very like the sigil of House Mormont. Hardly daring to believe that Dany implied what he thought she must, Jorah met her gaze, which touched him as gently as a caress.

"To honor my brave knight," she added, softly.

"You will hear no objection from me to that," he replied, and, more deeply touched and dazed with joy than when Lynesse gave him her favor to wear in the tourney at Lannisport--for unlike Lynesse, Dany knew him and honored him not just as a knight, but as a man--he bought it, without bothering to dispute its price. He knew full well that he paid too much for the trinket, but Dany's favor was worth far more than gold.

Feeling bold as she allowed him to pin it at the shoulder of her gown and his hand brushed the bit of bared breast exposed above the baby's sling, he said, "Perhaps one day I may also give you a cloak to wear with your cloak pin."

His heart hammered in his chest as he gazed down at her and tried to decipher from her expression whether she caught his underlying meaning. But the half-shy manner in which she dropped her eyes to admire her new brooch, which his fingers still lightly held, might mean anything. Did she even know it was the custom in Westeros for a groom to place his cloak over his new bride's shoulders, signifying that he brought her into his house and under his protection? Would she, as a member of the estimable House Targaryen, not to mention heir of the Seven Kingdoms, deign to place herself under the mantle of a lowly knight exiled from a lesser house?

It had to be a good sign that she smiled and tucked her arm once more through his as they continued on their way through the wharf. If she hadn't understood him, then there was nothing lost, but if she had… Jorah all but chuckled to himself when he imagined Lord Varys reading the missive he'd composed about being Daenerys Targaryen's man, unaware of the full scope of that description.

Except that when they did, at last, reach the rookery, Jorah sent neither Dany's letter to Illyrio Mopatis nor his own to Varys.

For, when they inquired of the dark skinned keeper of the ravens whether he'd lately had any news from Westeros, the man replied, "King Robert Baratheon is dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're kind enough to comment on the chapter, Jorah promises to take you down to the quay and buy you trinkets from vendors--and he won't even use money he earned by spying on you and selling your secrets to assassins, either. ;)


	12. Usurpers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Startling news from Westeros and burgeoning feelings for Jorah leave Dany uncertain as to her future course of action.

"The Usurper is dead."

The words Daenerys Targaryen had waited her whole life to hear sounded hollow in her ears, spoken in halting tones by her own incredulous voice.

She sat huddled over a table with Ser Jorah in a darkened corner of one of the many winesinks in the quay; upon hearing the news from Westeros, he'd stated that he needed a drink. Dany did not disagree, and sipped at a cup sweet red wine as Jorah nursed a flagon of ale. For the news had not just been of King Robert's death, but of that of his Hand, Eddard Stark, as well--executed, in fact, for the crime high treason, at which Jorah fairly spat in disbelief.

Though he had, perhaps, been still more surprised to hear that Stark's eldest son, a boy about Dany's own age, Jorah said, who could scarcely have finished training with wooden swords in the castle yards of Winterfell, styled himself King in the North, while Robert's two brothers vied with each other for the Iron Throne, claiming that their nephew King Joffrey was not of Baratheon blood at all, but a bastard borne of Queen Cersei's incest with her twin, Ser Jaime. Dany had winced at that; her own parents, and indeed most of her forebears, had been brothers wedded to sister, or their nearest female kin, and she herself had passed her girlhood expecting to become Viserys' bride--a thought which repulsed her now, though not for reasons having to do with incest.

"The Seven Kingdoms are fractured," she said. "Ser Jorah, this is exactly what I need, is it not? I must amend my letter to Illyrio at once, and ask for an army."

"Unless he's friends with another _khal_ for you to marry, I can't see how Illyrio would be of any help to you."

Though the knight did not speak forcibly, staring blankly into his ale, Dany nonetheless felt his words like a blow to the gut. Illyrio had arranged her marriage for such a time as this. She didn't know how he knew the Seven Kingdoms would descend into chaos--and she recalled with a chill down her spine how uneasy Illyrio had made her when he first befriended Viserys, and the whispers she'd heard on the streets of Pentos that the magister didn't have a friend he wouldn't cheerfully sell for the right price--but the Seven Kingdoms were embroiled in civil war now, and this was precisely the time Illyrio had intended for the Targaryen heir to march on Westeros with Khal Drogo's army of ten thousand Dothraki cavalrymen. She should be invading her country now, but instead she was as far away from the Iron Throne as she'd ever been, with exactly one knight in her service.

Because she'd taken pity on a slave woman.

Ser Jorah had been right when he'd said she had a gentle heart.

But no longer.

Dany sat up straight and slipped her forefinger between Rhaego's lips and her nipple to break the strength of his latch. He screeched in protest when she removed him from her breast, but quieted when she put him on her shoulder and patted his back.

"Then I must try my luck and appeal to Xaro Xhoan Daxos for ships and hired swords," she said. "My best chance for success may be while the lords of Westeros battle amongst themselves."

"Not with a foreign army."

"What do you mean, ser?"

At last Jorah looked up from his ale, his eyes locking with hers as he took a long pull from the flagon. He set the empty cup on the slightly uneven surface of the table and signaled to the barmaid to bring him another, and leaned against the wooden back of his bench.

"No king--or queen--no matter how legitimate her claim to the throne, could unite the houses of Westeros so quickly as a foreign threat would."

Dany gaped at him. "But…the plan has _always_ been to strike with a foreign army."

"A _Dothraki_ army." Jorah gave a curt nod to the wench who brought him a fresh ale. "With such a fearsome calvary at your command, I'd have put my life on your success. Now you talk of merchant vessels and an army of sellswords." He shook his head and raised his cup to his lips. "Gold is not so inspiring as a _khal_ 's righteous indignation at an attempt on his beloved _khaleesi_ 's life."

Dany's shoulders sagged under the weight of Jorah's words, and Rhaego began to squirm in her slackened arms, rooting for her breast. She cradled him and let him suckle again on the opposite side. "But surely--"

" _Surely_ you haven't forgotten how quickly Robert sent his assassins for you when he learned of your pregnancy?" Jorah's eyes flickered down to his cup as he drank. "The very brothers who now contend for his throne sat upon the council that advised that course, my queen."

With a sigh, Dany conceded his point. "And they would not hesitate to eliminate the smallest hint of another threat."

Jorah nodded. "Stannis most of all. The houses of his Crownlands once supported House Targaryen. Stannis cannot risk that they might yet retain those old loyalties."

"Are there other houses that would support me? Viserys was confident of the Martells of Dorne, who would avenge my brother Rhaegar's wife Elia and their children, and the Tyrrells, the Redwynes, the Darrys, and the Greyjoys."

Dany pursed her lips; she knew Ser Jorah had won his spurs for his valor in quelling the Greyjoy Rebellion.

" _Your_ house rally to the side of this King in the North, I presume?" she added, sounding even to her own ears a petulant child, little more than a mewling babe in arms like the one at her breast, but she didn't care. This news, which should have been the best of her life, had left her feeling overwhelmed and more desperate than ever.

"House Mormont would follow you, were I still lord."

"Were that the case, you would never have met me. You would do your duty and flock to your overlord's banner."

Dany half-expected Jorah to bristle at this, to declare his loyalty to her as his true sovereign. However, he seemed not to have heard her at all.

"Joffrey _must_ be Queen Cersei's bastard," he said, as though thinking aloud, "or the northmen would defend his claim. It was, after all, Robert Baratheon we fought to put on the throne. But I know Eddard Stark, and were he alive, he'd give the strength of Winterfell and her bannermen to the rightful heir, which would be Stannis, as Robert's eldest brother." He rubbed his fingers over his beard. "There must be something foul afoot to prompt young Robb to rebellion…" His eyes flicked to Dany's so abruptly that they startled her."So perhaps House Targaryen _may_ have new allies, my queen. Someday."

"Someday," Dany echoed, her voice tremulous, Jorah's visage distorting as she regarded him through a veil of unshed tears. She would not let them fall; a dragon did not weep.

"I know you are right," she said, blinking back the tears, "that my son and I stand a better chance of surviving to sit the Iron Throne if we bide our time while our enemies are too distracted to even remember the Targaryen line did not die with my brother Rhaegar on the Trident…But hearing of the Usurper's death…hearing of _home_ …" Her eyes welled again. "It was as if were starving in a dungeon and caught a whiff of a savory dish, only to have it taken away before I could taste it. I've waited a lifetime for home already…"

"Well do I know the feeling."

She pushed back her tears once and for all, and looked upon him. The face that she hadn't thought handsome at first, but had lately become so dear to her, the first face she wanted to see each day, was lined, deep unhappiness tugging at the corners of his mouth, his gaze far away. It must be an anguish to him to advise her to delay her journey to Westeros knowing that in doing so he extended his own wait.

She reached out to him, and his lips curved slightly upward and he peered at her through bright eyes as he grasped her hand across the table.

"What does all this mean for you, my good knight? With Lord Stark dead…Is there aught to keep you from home?"

"As I said, _you_ are home."

Dany thought Jorah said it with less conviction than the previous day, which struck her as passing strange, though she dismissed the suspicion; he was preoccupied with this news and its implications. And he squeezed her hand before releasing it and taking up his ale again with a heavy sigh.

"Unless one of the claimants to the throne has taken the time from his war to change the laws against the slave trade, my crime is still punishable by death in the Seven Kingdoms. And there are many besides Eddard Stark who would happily see me dead--or smile to do the deed themselves." Hs expression and tone became as bitter as the ale he drank.

"Not your own kin?"

"No. My deeds brought shame upon House Mormont, but they would not harm one of their own. Though I cannot imagine my aunt Maege would be so forgiving as to happily relinquish my lands back to me, or even shelter me under my own roof."

Dany ached inwardly for him, but she didn't miss how he spoke of the shame wrought by his _deeds_ \--not by _himself_ , as if he did not fully own to what had exiled him. She'd always found it difficult to reconcile what she knew of his past with the noble, honorable behavior he'd exhibited to her, which came at his own peril. Now, though, she had to wonder.

"Are you sorry for your crime, Jorah? Only…I think how you told me I could not claim all the Lhazareen captives for my own, how you said it was the _kos_ ' right to have the women…"

"Are you asking whether I condone slavery and the abuse of prisoners of war?" asked Jorah, twisting to glance over his shoulder; he'd finished his second pint, and Dany thought he was looking for the barmaid, but she passed without him flagging her. Had he spied something suspicious? He turned back to her, his face indicating nothing.

"No, my queen. I do not. And since you mention it, I will tell you I believed your desire to free Khal Drogo's captives and spare them maltreatment and enslavement was noble, and right."

"I want to know how you regard _your_ crime. Not my husband's."

Dany bristled even though, as ever, Jorah intimated no slur upon the Dothraki's brutal ways. It was _she_ who condemned them--Drogo, too--and she did not like that she'd come to view certain aspects of husband more negatively after his death than she had in his life. But it wasn't fair to unleash anger upon Jorah that ought to have been directed at herself.

Jorah's demeanor indicated he felt precisely the same. He sat back against the bench, lifting his chin defiantly as he said, "My view of what I did has not changed since then. The men I sold were bound for the Wall, as good as slaves already. Even if their master was to be my lord father."

Dany recalled the statement he'd made the previous day, about how he wouldn't go to the Wall for the  
same reason she wouldn't go to the _dosh khaleen_. She'd been chewing on it ever since, and now she thought she understood--at least in part. So long as Jorah Mormont lived, he would be free.

Yet he would deny other men their freedom.

"Do you mean to tell me you would sell those men again?" Dany asked.

He turned again to look over his shoulder, and as he did so, a man who'd been sitting in the shadows, his Qartheen-style cloak pulled up to cover his mouth, got up and exited the tavern. Dany glanced at Jorah, but his eyes were searching for the barmaid, to whom he signaled for another ale.

"I've searched my soul for an answer to that question every day since my exile," he said.

"Have you found one?"

The barmaid returned with Jorah's ale and set it before him, eying Dany's virtually untouched wine as she cleared away the two empty tankards.

"Oh yes," Jorah replied, his lips curled faintly upward as he squeezed a wedge of lemon into his cup.

"And what is it, ser?"

He took a long drink, and his eyes met hers as he swallowed. "That there is precious little I wouldn't do for love."  
~*~

Jorah's words lingered with Dany all through the day and kept her awake late into the night, long after his breathing had deepened and the twitches of his muscles stilled as he fell fully asleep beside her in their comfortable bed in Xaro Xoan Daxos' palace. She'd employed every means she knew to help her sleep, including waking Rhaego to suckle him, which normally made her drowsy even when her mind wanted to be alert, but it had no such effect as she studied Jorah in the pale moonlight filtering through the gauzy curtains that covered the tall, open windows.

He slept nude tonight, the sheet draped low across his hips; however, it wasn't his physical nakedness she contemplated, but how open he'd made his heart to her since they arrived in Qarth. Somehow, his declarations about her being his home, of her being the choice he would make above the chance to return to Bear Island, had struck Dany as being more courtly than sincere, so that Jorah had managed to take her by surprise when he'd all but proposed marriage to her that morning. She'd known when she asked him to make her a gift of the bear brooch that she trod very near the Westerosi wedding tradition of a bride taking the cloak of her husband's family, but she hadn't imagined he would be _so_ emboldened as to actually speak of it.

Perhaps he hadn't meant her to understand. He might have thought her ignorant of the customs of her homeland. The irony, if that was the case, was that she'd read of weddings in the Seven Kingdoms in one of the books Jorah had given her for her wedding to Drogo. Those very books that listed the genealogy of House Targaryen, with bloodlines so pure and high that she should be ashamed to accept trinkets and entertain offers of marriage from knights in her service. Least of all knights exiled for such a despicable crime as selling slaves.

And yet, as she studied Jorah's sleeping form, his muscles tensed and his face lined with care as though there was no rest for his weary soul even in sleep, she couldn't bring herself to condemn him, either, and not because the Targaryens balked at slaveholding. It was difficult to find fault with a man whose driving motivation for everything he did was love. Now, for her.

She had tasted power over Drogo, and it had been sweet, but she knew now that the words Jorah had uttered would never have passed from the horse lord's lips. And perhaps that was the sort of marriage she needed--not a political alliance in which she ultimately must rank second to her powerful lord husband, but one in which she was queen of a man's country as well as of his heart.

Then again, _was_ she, indeed, queen of Jorah's heart? Or did Lynesse Hightower still hold that place, the Queen of Love and Beauty as he'd crowned her at the tourney at Lannisport? The question Dany _should_ have asked him wasn't whether he would sell slaves again, but whether he would marry Lynesse again.

Was that what he thought of when he'd talked to Dany of cloaks? The day he'd placed his own green woolen cloak with the black bear sigil over Lynesse's shoulders? When he'd run from Bear Island with Lynesse, had he also told her that it didn't matter, that wherever she was, he was home? If her merchant prince cast her out, and she came groveling back to Jorah, would he forgive her, and take her once again into his bed?

Dany imagined it as clearly as if it really were happening. A double of herself--a little older, a little taller, a little more beautiful, and infinitely more proud--who could only be Lynesse, sauntered up to the bedside and let a silken bed robe slide from her shoulders to cover Dany as she climbed between her and Jorah on the bed. By the time Dany broke free from the robe, which entangled her like a net, Lynesse and Jorah had gotten up from the bed. Only it wasn't Jorah anymore, it was Xaro Xhoan Daxos, and he sailed off with Lynesse in a pleasure barge, brightly lit with lanterns which suddenly exploded into flame. Dragon flame, from the mouth of the three-headed creature she'd dreamed of before, when she was dying in the Red Waste, once again ridden by a full-grown Rhaego. Though the dragon wasn't quite the same as before, Dany saw, its black, cream, and green-scaled necks ending in the shaggy black body of a bear standing tall on its hind legs. Above the roar of the dragon-bear and the flames, Xaro and Lynesse screamed in agony while Mirri Maz Duur danced with a man with blue lips and a woman in a red lacquered mask who sang in the tongues of Lhazaar, Valyria, and Westeros of the children of Jorah Mormont and Daenerys Targaryen.

And then brilliant white light flashed in Dany's eyes, and she saw that it was morning, and she was quite alone in bed with Jorah, Rhaego a babe asleep in his cradle, surrounded by the dragon's eggs.

She'd slept.

She'd dreamed.

Dany crept out of bed, quietly and carefully so as not to rouse Jorah, and sponged cool water from the wash basin over her sweat slicked skin. As she cleaned herself she tried to make sense of the dream, but it seemed so ridiculous now, an amalgam of all the people she'd thought of during the long, wakeful night. Yet her heart pounded in her chest, which rose and fell with breaths that came quick and ragged, not from exhaustion but exhilaration at having vanquished a foe. Even if it was only a rival for a man's heart and not a rival for her crown, and only in a dream.

But why should she settle for a dream victory? She reached for a light bedrobe she'd left draped over a bench last night and her gaze fell upon the onyx bear Jorah had bought her. It was a humble gift, yet she'd received more pleasure from it when Jorah's deft fingers pinned it on her gown than she'd ever been with any of the family jewels Viserys had sold to feed them. Lynesse would have scoffed at such a gift. Could Dany truly blame Jorah for wanting a second chance with a younger woman who slightly resembled his former wife? Surely he recognized _her_ worth over the thankless girl he had married.

She noticed that he had stirred in his sleep, causing the sheet to slip down past his waist to reveal his arousal. Fascinated, she went back to bed and lay down atop the sheet, the better to look him over. He was older than Drogo, to be sure, and not as handsome, his hair thinning on the top of his head and growing over his body where Drogo had been smooth. But she was intrigued by the way the wiry hairs framed Jorah's well-muscled chest, emphasizing how fit he was and how strong for the sword, and she liked the way they thinned to a fine trail that ran down from his navel to where it branched out again above his manhood.

He groaned, and Dany looked up to find his eyes cracked open as he reached to pull the sheet up over himself.

"It happens to men, sometimes, in the mornings," he said, his voice low and slightly raspy with sleep, and Dany liked the sound of it, wanted to hear him speak endearments to her in that voice. "Even when they awake alone in their beds. Even when they haven't dreamed of ladies fair."

Dany thought he must be referring to the time she'd woken to his arousal and she'd been repulsed and he mortified. Much had changed between then and now, not least of all their charade of being married which had made her comfortable with Jorah's physical affection. No, not merely comfortable, but desirous of it. For her bond with him ran deep now. He was more than advisor to her, or even friend. He had sacrificed for her in the Red Waste, not out of service but out of love; he had helped her deliver her child, and since then had given a father's love to Rhaegar and the tenderness of a husband to her, while never demanding more from her than she was ready to give, as he might well have done were he a less honorable man, given his strength and their isolation. Dany had much for which to be grateful, and she felt a little embarrassed at her previous ignorance that had brought pain to a man who deserved the opposite.

She reached beneath the sheet and took him in her hand. Jorah's stomach hitched inward with his sharply indrawn breath, and she smiled.

"You're certain it has nothing to do with _me_ , ser?" she asked, coyly.

Her smile widened as she began to slide her hand up and down over him. Now _this_ was power, she thought, rendering speechless the man who almost never held his tongue in her presence. _He would do anything for love_. He had not stipulated what kind of love, but surely such devotion ought to be rewarded. She tightened her fingers around him and enjoyed how he swelled against her in turn, his head falling back on his pillow exposing his pale throat and the bulge of his Adam's apple which she was desirous to kiss. As she stretched to press her lips to his neck she also quickened her strokes, his surprisingly soft, almost velvety skin supple beneath her palm, and his breathing became a pant.

Suddenly, his hand closed around hers. "Don't," he ground out between his clenched teeth.

Dany lifted her head, but did not still her hand. "Don't you want this?"

"I think that's quite evident." Jorah's other hand came around hers, prying her fingers loose from around him. "But do you?"

She blinked. "I am Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. I do nothing but that I want to do it, pleasuring you included."

She reached for him again, but his large hand found her shoulder, holding her firmly back from him. He gave a slight smile tinged with regret. "I don't want you to pleasure me, Dany. If that was all I wanted, I know where I could go. I want you to love me. Can you give me that?"

Flame ignited in Dany's breast, scorching its path up her chin and into her face. She slapped Jorah's hand away and sprang from the bed, upsetting the bedside table as she did so, which sent a candlestick and her onyx brooch clattering to the floor. In his cradle, Rhaego woke with a cry.

"Go, then, Ser Jorah!" Dany shouted over the babe's wails. "Find a whore to fuck. I hope she looks like me," she spat. "Or your _wife_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who take the time to comment will get an early morning tryst with Jorah--and he won't go all noble and put a stop to it. Although I can't promise that the Dragon Queen won't be jealous and exact revenge. ;)


	13. Games and Players

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange encounters drive the wedge further between Dany and Jorah, who can only watch and submit as Dany forms an alliance he fears will cost her the game of thrones--and him, his heart.

A city's brothels had never seemed so numerous or so appealing to Jorah as the pleasure houses of Qarth were to him as he stormed through the quay.

No--that wasn't strictly true. There had been at least as many in Lys, and after Lynesse took up with Tregar Ormollen, Jorah had done his best to forget her in the arms of every fair-haired whore money could buy. Of course, Lynesse had bankrupted him as well as made him a cuckold, so it hadn't been long before the copper stags had run out along with his pleasure, and _he'd_ run from Lys under threat of enslavement from his wife's new lover.

Today Jorah's purse held only slightly more coin, but he didn't succumb to the temptation of the naked, painted girls who beckoned to him from open windows and doorways--it must be difficult to be a whore in Qarth, he thought, when the fashion was that all women, free or slave, peasant or noble, bared one of her milky breasts to all and sundry--even though more than a few had silver hair and full, round breasts that would do nicely to give the illusion of being Dany.

But he didn't want to fuck an illusion. That was why he'd stopped her from pleasuring him in the first place. Any of these whores could give him the physical release she denied him. And deny him she had, though he, technically, had been the one to stop her; it had been her choice, and she would not, or _could_ not, give him the love he asked of her.

Seven hells, if physical release was all he sought, he could take care of that himself. He did not, for the same reason he crossed the street to avoid the brothels: relieving his physical frustration wouldn't do a bloody thing for his heart. Or help his chances of winning _Dany's_ heart--and, despite how everything had turned to shit in the space of one shuddering breath, he couldn't let go of the belief that he did have one; a woman didn't go from being disgusted by a man's arousal to wanting to caress his manhood in her own sweet hands without some depth of feeling blossoming toward him.

He imagined himself returning to their chamber in Xaro Xhoan Daxos palace, reeking of a whore's perfumes and the musk of love, and stoking the fire of Dany's fury. But I merely did as I was bid, Your _Grace. An obedient knight fucks whomever his queen commands him._

He let out a short, bitter puff of laughter. By that logic, a true knight would have lain submissively while his queen did as she liked with him. But Jorah had never been one to submit, which was why he was here in the first place. Though he couldn't say whether by here he meant the Qartheen quay specifically or Essos in general. Both, perhaps.

The hell of it was that this time, his actions hadn't been prompted by self-preservation. At least not strictly. It was true enough that he didn't want part of Dany if he wasn't absolutely certain he would someday have all of her. But it was equally true that he didn't want her to do anything she might come to regret.

He couldn't bear for _another_ woman to regret him.

So he had stopped her. As he believed a true knight would.

Perhaps by the time he got back to Daxos', she would have thought things over and come to that conclusion for herself. Or, if she had not, he would explain himself--though that would be even more humiliating than when her untoward reaction to his arousal had forced him to prematurely confess his love to her.

In any case, he quickened his stride as he wound his way through the vendors' stalls that filled the quay. He'd left his queen and her child--and her priceless dragon's eggs--alone and unguarded in the home of a man he didn't trust. That would never do, any more than it would do for him, a supposed married man, to be spied going into a brothel, should Daxos or Pyat Pree be having him and Dany watched, as Jorah suspected they were. It was early yet, the debacle with Dany occurring before they had even broken their fast--to which his grumbling stomach could attest--and easier to get through the market than it had been the previous morn, when the throng had descended upon the place like carrion birds on a carcass. Jorah's steps momentarily faltered when he noted, in his periphery, the stall where he'd made Dany his impulsive gift of the bear cloak pin.

"Ah, my goodser of Westeros," said the pale-skinned Qartheen jeweler, getting up from his stool. "Have you returned to buy another pretty trinket for your pretty lady? Perhaps this onyx ring to match her brooch? Or the sterling horse pin that first caught her lovely violet eye?"

"I bought myself enough pain with your damnable wares," Jorah growled, knocking shoulders with the man as he barreled past.

The jeweler was not the only person in the quay who recognized him; when Jorah came to the rookery, which was his destination, the birdkeeper regarded him through eyes narrowed to slits.

"You again. Come to beg more news without the courtesy of your business?"

The tidings from Westeros had come as such a shock that Dany and Jorah had left the rookery without sending the messages they'd intended--or rather, the one message Jorah intended to send to Lord Varys in place of the message Dany intended to send to Illyrio Mopatis. It _had_ been rude, but Jorah felt no compunction to reward the man's insolence with explanations.

He flicked the man a few coppers. "I have need of parchment and ink. And sealing wax."

Coin proved courtesy enough for the offended raven keeper, and Jorah moved to the side of the rookery, bending low over the table to scratch out his message. He'd not communicated with the Spider since Varys wrote to tell him he was pardoned, and his original message had been simply to say that he served Daenerys Targaryen now, and had no need of the Usurper's pardons--about which, of course, Dany knew nothing--and the Spider would have to find a new bird to sing songs from the east. But in light of the political developments that had unfolded since Jorah left Vaes Dothrak with Drogo's _khalasar_ , and Dany's wish to lie low until Rhaego was grown or she had sufficient means to join in the fight for the Seven Kingdoms--not to mention, to sail to them--such a taunt seemed foolhardy. Her rivals might have forgotten about the Targaryen claim to the throne, but Varys never would.

Best to unravel the Spider's web a bit, by feeding him a morsel of misinformation. A dangerous game, to be sure, but hadn't Jorah told Dany he'd do anything for love?

When he handed the message over to the raven keeper and told him to send it with his swiftest bird, Jorah caught the man glancing at the outline of his sigil in the still hot brownish-red wax. Or perhaps it was Jorah's imagination, no doubt influenced by his paranoia that Xaro Xhoan Daxos or Pyat Pree were spying on him and Dany and would discover the truth of their identities. The keeper of the rookery saw hundreds of signets every day; there was no reason why he should remember an ordinary bear out of all of them.

Nevertheless, Jorah paid an extra few copper groats. "For your information yesterday." And your silence _today_.

The sleepy quay had begun to awaken in earnest with the climbing sun as Jorah made his way back toward Daxos' palace, but it didn't take long for him to realize that his difficulty in picking a path through the vendors' stalls was due to more than the usual morning crowd milling about to hock and buy wares. People pressed together like so much cargo in the hold of a merchant vessel to watch something taking place in the street. Despite having the advantage of size over many of the Qartheen, fathers had lifted children atop their shoulders to see the excitement, piquing Jorah's curiosity with cries of, "Look at the fire!" and "How does he do it, Papa?" and "Does he have magic?" Though the exclamations were not directed at him, Jorah snorted his annoyance that his way, apparently, had been impeded by some mummer's tricks.

Turning awkwardly in the packed space, he intended to push to the back of the crowd and go around. But as he did so, he found himself face to face with a red lacquer mask.

"Quaithe," he said uneasily, not meeting the unblinking black eyes that bore into him from the slits in the mask. "What a surprise to meet you here."

"I follow fire," she replied. "Look."

Against his will, not at all liking the thought of that mask at his back, Jorah did her bidding, and, through a gap in the crowd that had not been there the moment before, he saw a man charming fire with his hands as one might make a snake dance to a tune from a pipe. Ropes of flame rose from the ground, uncoiling to form the rungs of a ladder.

"That pretty trick will fill his purse with coin," said Jorah as he turned to step around Quaithe. But the masked woman remained firmly in his path.

"The firemage could hardly awaken flame from dragonglass before the Red Comet heralded the Mother of Dragons--"

Though Jorah did not like how close the priestess came to the truth, he laughed at her. "Do you intend me to believe that _Dany_ is the source of this charlatan's art?"

The eyes glittered in the slits of the mask, but not with mirth. "From the west come whispers that the pyromancers have awoken, preparing the way for the Dragon Queen's return."

Jorah's laughter died as his fingers instinctively found the pommel of his sword. "I know not of what, or of whom you speak, priestess. Now let me pass."

"Ser plays the fool poorly." Quaithe's voice carried over the roar of the crowd with the clarity of a bell chiming from the tower of a sept."Tell the Mother of Dragons that to go north, she must go south. To reach the west, she must go east. To go forward she must go back, and to touch the light she must pass beneath the shadow. Quaithe will take her where her children may grow in safety from men who mean them harm."

He pictured Dany, bending over her dragon's eggs, caressing and holding them as if they were three more of her children.

"You talk madness, woman!" Jorah called back to the Asshai'i priestess--but when he glanced over his shoulder, she was gone, somehow having managed to slip through the crowd as if she were no more than a shadow herself.

He redoubled his own efforts at breaking free from the press of flesh, his heart pounding in spite of his attempts at convincing himself that Quaithe, as much as the firemage spinning his ladder in the street, was a trickster, a performer. She knew too much, and now he didn't know where she was. He never should have left Dany alone in Daxos' palace. Never should have left the warmth of her bed and her embrace.

Quaithe might have hit alarmingly close to the mark in some matters, but on one point she was sorely mistaken.

Jorah played the fool exceedingly well.  
~*~

"Where is she?" he managed not to roar at the serving boy he caught skulking in the hall after discovering Dany and Rhaego not within their chamber--the same boy who'd eavesdropped on them before-- though Jorah's voice was still a harsh growl. The boy was lucky for the restraint imposed by the necessity of secrecy; otherwise, he'd be pinned to the wall, a blade at his throat.

"If you please, sir," stammered the boy, "the lady and her babe went with my master to the gardens."

Any guilt Jorah felt at the sight of the boy--a child--cringing back from him was diminished at the mention of Daxos. It was one thing for Dany to wander about the palace and its grounds on her own--What had he expected her to do during his absence? _He_ would not have wished to remain in the place where such a humiliating quarrel as that morning's had occurred--but his encounter with Quaithe had only heightened his sense that their host was not to be trusted.

When he found the gardens and saw Dany seated on a stone bench beside Daxos-- _quite close_ beside Daxos, who was dandling Rhaego upon his knee--suspicion gave way to another emotion entirely.

Dany's gaze had been rapt upon the merchant prince as he spoke to her in low accented tones that reached Jorah's ears like a soft line of music being played far off--a tune to which he couldn't make out the words but nonetheless did not at all like--but when Daxos interrupted himself to say, "Ah, your wayfaring husband has returned," her eyes darted sideways at Jorah's approach, and he saw her chest rise with a sharply indrawn breath.

Only a few short hours before, he thought with a twinge, she'd taken him intimately in her hands with the intent of giving him pleasure; now she couldn't look at him.

Still, they had their roles to play. Jorah forced himself to hold his shoulders proudly erect and stride toward her confidently, as a husband would. However, because he didn't know what she might have said to Daxos about their quarrel--he didn't _think_ Dany would divulge details about their private life, but you never knew with women when they were angry and offended, especially not when they were Targaryen--and because he didn't wish to stoke her ire further, he did not indulge his fantasies by greeting her with a kiss, as he might have done were the circumstances different. If he had not been such a bloody noble _fool_ and allowed her to go through with what she'd intended.

Of course, if he _had_ taken advantage of her impetuosity, he might still find himself standing before a Dany who would not meet his eye. And that would be far worse than this. How well he knew it.

He chose not to make it more difficult for her by sending his own lingering glances her way. He allowed his eyes to touch her for just a moment, then reached down to pluck Rhaego off Daxos' knee. Not that it wasn't amusing to see the opulent man oblivious to the stream of milky infant sick flowing over Daxos' pale, ring-decked fingers, but he--and Dany, Jorah noted with a frown--also seemed deaf to the child's whimpers as Daxos jiggled him. Rhaego hated to be bounced, however gently, as if he sat astride a pony; Jorah and Dany had laughed together on more than one occasion that this was most sadly ironic for a horse lord's son who was prophesied to be the stallion who mounts the world, though she always noted that in her dreams Rhaego rode a three-headed dragon, not a steed.

Jorah's chest swelled with a deal of satisfaction when, rescued from his ill-favored mount, the tiny prince instantly stopped fussing and began to coo, his tawny Dothraki face twitching into a toothless grin that _might_ have been intentional--so much satisfaction, in fact, that Jorah did not allow himself to wince or yelp when Rhaego reached up and grasped his beard in a pincer-like grasp.

"I see my wife and child have not been neglected in my absence."

Dany turned from Daxos, reluctantly, it seemed, and regarded Jorah with eyes as cool as a winter twilight at home, which he hoped was just an effect of her gown of silver silk--how he loathed the breast-baring Quartheen fashion--than a true cooling of her affection for him.

"Xaro has just been telling me about Qartheen wedding customs," she said.

"Wedding customs," Jorah repeated flatly, pulling Rhaego's fingers from his beard.

"One of my merchant brothers of the Thirteen is lately betrothed," Daxos said, standing. "They will wed in the new year, and I will host their feast on my pleasure barge." He swept his arm wide, the bell sleeve of his saffron hued robe having almost the affect of a drapery being drawn back from a window to reveal the elegant and exotic view of his gardens. "I asked Dany to lend me a lady's eye for floral arrangements."

Because merchant princes didn't have servants for that sort of task, Jorah restrained himself from saying, though he couldn't hold back a snort.

"Our countrymen could learn from the Qartheen," Dany said. "Here a woman retains full ownership of her own property and wealth when she is wed."

"Such a custom would have benefitted you _how_ , sweetling?" said Jorah with an indulgent smile. "If memory serves, the property you brought into our marriage consisted of one dress? Perhaps two?"

Dany gave what Jorah supposed was meant to be the smile of a deferential wife, but which scarcely masked her decidedly _not_ submissive irritation.

Daxos laughed loudly, his eyes glittering like the jewels in his nose. "In such a case, Jorah, you might have stood to benefit from another Qartheen marriage custom. Women do, indeed, retain ownership of their property, but it is the right of both the bride and groom to ask their spouse to gift them with one thing of the other's possession. So if you asked your woman for her one dress…You would be a most fortunate husband."

"Is this gift agreed upon before the marriage?" Jorah asked over Daxos' laughter, interested in spite of himself--not least of all because he suspected Daxos' motives for discussing the subject with Dany.

"It is not."

Jorah caught Dany's gaze. "Such a custom bespeaks a deal of trust between the bride and groom."

Her eyes flashed, and her lips parted in retort; thankfully, Daxos spoke before she could utter a syllable that would give them away.

"Just so."

Shifting Rhaego, Jorah reached out with his free hand and caught Dany around her bare upper arm. "Come. I believe it is time for Rhaego's nap."

Beneath his fingers he felt the flexing of Dany's muscles, like rope pulled taut, but she made no real attempt to break free of his grasp."Yes, husband."

They had not gone ten paces from Daxos when he called after them. "Was your search for work successful?"

Jorah faltered, and was glad that their backs were to Daxos as he was unable to stop himself shooting Dany a questioning look. What in seven hells had she told the man? Obviously, she'd fabricated an explanation for his absence, with which even he could not quibble, but he wished she'd made up an errand for him that wouldn't require him to revisit it in the future.

Fortunately, Jorah was a practiced liar, and hardly had to think before he turned to Daxos and replied, evenly, "There was a disturbance at the quay. I could not get through for the crowd."

"A disturbance?" Daxos' bejeweled nostrils flared. "Of what sort?"

"Some charlatan with fire. A mummer, perhaps."

"A firemage?"

Jorah shrugged. "I have little knowledge of such things."

"Of course," Daxos replied. "A question better put to my friend Pyat Pree. Or perhaps Quaithe."

A gasp from Dany alerted Jorah to the fact that he'd tightened his grip around her arm. Instantly he released her, shooting her a glance which he hoped spoke to her that there was an explanation behind his reaction--namely, that he feared Daxos somehow knew about his encounter at the wharf with Quaithe--without passing within Daxos' notice.

"If it is work you are seeking, Jorah," Daxos said, returning their dialogue so neatly to its original course that Jorah thought he had to have read the glance, "your sword would be better put to my employ than trusting the sort you meet down at the quay."

"Do you not conduct a deal of your own business out of the quay, my prince?"

Daxos chuckled, but the gleam in his eye was more like the flash of a steel blade than the twinkle of jewels as he saw through the bit of mockery Jorah had been unable to resist. However, his speech was gracious, as ever.

"But of course as I was telling Dany, you have no need to work for my hospitality until you are sufficiently recovered from your ordeal in the Red Waste and captivity to the Dothraki. I suspect the notion of service to any man, even for gold, is bitter to you at present. And now you must see to the child's nap."

Though Jorah set a quick pace back to their chamber, that particular wing of the palace was not designated for the most illustrious of guests, and so was a fair distance from the gardens. He knew it didn't suit the roles they'd adopted to storm through Daxos' home, dragging his bewildered wife along rather roughly by the wrist as she fairly trotted to keep up with his longer strides--he should have set a leisurely pace and made pleasant conversation with her about their luxurious surroundings--but all his energy was required to hold back the torrent of emotion that would no doubt give them away.

No sooner had they set foot in their room, Jorah bolting the door behind them, when the dam broke, his thoughts spewing forth in no relevant order.

"Did you tell Daxos I was a sellsword?"

All pretense of Dany being the meek and mild female abandoned her as her steely gaze locked with his. "He saw you leaving the palace and found me to ask why you were not with me this morn, when you have stuck as close as my own shadow. I had to make excuses, so I said you'd gone to find work, and he asked what your profession had been before our capture. You haven't bothered to hide your sword, and I couldn't very well tell him you're a knight. I'm sorry if that wounds your pride."

It _did_ , and she didn't sound at all sorry for it, but even Jorah couldn't deny that it had been a sensible tale, and one he'd managed to sidestep easily enough. Luckily.

Still, he didn't like that Dany had been forced to cover for him at all; in the previous days of their stay, their host had seemed to have all but forgotten them. Jorah couldn't believe it was coincidence that Dany had happened upon Daxos during Jorah's first separation from her since their arrival.

"What were you doing with him?"

"He came to me. If you wish to guard me against men you do not trust, you should not leave me alone in their houses. Although in the case of Daxos, I believe your suspicions are sorely misplaced."

"Do you? And if you recall, you _sent_ me away."

Fire crackled in Dany's eyes, though Jorah noticed it didn't burn as hotly as when she'd sent him from her bed. Her tone was cool--and controlled. "And did you do as I instructed?"

Jorah nearly cracked a smile. So, she did care where he stuck his cock. "I hope you will forgive my disobedience, Your Grace. I found myself more in want of drink than of pleasure."

Visibly softening, Dany plucked Rhaego from Jorah's arms--the babe had fallen asleep on his shoulder and only cracked his eyes to peer drowsily up at his mother as she transferred him to his cradle. From beneath the big bed-- _their_ bed, though Jorah wondered if, after this morning, that would be true tonight--she drew the dragon's eggs in their old casket and arranged them around Rhaego. She'd not bothered to hide the eggs since they'd been here, which made him wonder whether something had happened with Daxos to alarm her. Before he could inquire, Dany distracted him with a question of her own.

"Did you speak truly about a disturbance in the quay?"

Jorah gave her his account of Quaithe's appearance during the fire mage's performance. "We have been here but three days, my queen, but I believe we have tarried too long in indecision about our future course."

Dany looked visibly relieved as she rose from her son's bedside and faced Jorah once more. "I concur. I realized today that my game of hearts has distracted me from my game of thrones."

"A game? Is that how you view me, Daenerys?"

" _Your Grace_ ," she said with a sigh, and sat herself at the edge of a nearby chair, perching at the edge as if it were the Iron Throne itself."Masquerade, game...it's all the same, is it not, ser?"

"If it was only a masquerade," said Jorah, his voice shaking with barely contained rage as he moved to stand before her so that she had to look up at him, "there was no need to continue it behind closed doors." Two spots of color appeared on Dany's high cheekbones. "You made me believe--"

"Is it not within a queen's right to reward her faithful servants? And, as you so ungraciously reminded me a moment ago, I have little in the way of monetary goods to bestow, I must be resourceful."

Jorah's fingers twitched to clamp around Dany's shoulders and haul her to her feet, to claim her scornful mouth with his own and kiss her till her lips were bruised and bloody. Instead, he clinched his hands into fists and bore his fingernails into his own palms and spoke in low, controlled tones.

"It's been a long time since I thought you a child, _Your Grace_. Perhaps I was wrong. But I'll not be your toy."

"If you have any desire to see your home or have my heart, ser, you will be silent, and hear what I have to say."

Jorah had no choice but to hold his tongue, and obey.


	14. Unmasked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany's truth is made known, but rather than flee, she finds herself considering an offer which Jorah would rather she refuse.

They had been given the lowest seats on Xaro Xhoan Daxos' pleasure barge, near the rowers, as befit their supposed station, but Dany hardly minded, so charmed she was with the vessel. Any place on the watercraft provided a breathtaking nighttime view of the vast city of Qarth, and while the festivities of Xaro's merchant friend's wedding feast carried on the deck above them, Dany amused herself with trying to identify the landmarks they'd visited during the weeks they'd passed in the city.

Since the day Xaro had come to her after her early morning quarrel with Jorah, their host had taken a greater interest in them, making it his personal quest to better acquaint them with the wonders of his city, which surpassed any Dany had visited in wealth and magnificence. Jorah had, of course, found Xaro's friendship amiss, while she had taken the more optimistic line that he saw their inner quality through their mask and might prove the ally whom they so desperately needed.

Jorah had scoffed at this. "Has it not occurred to you that Daxos sees our _inner quality_ because he's never for a second believed we are who we claim to be? He was there in Vaes Tolorro when Quaithe called you the mother of dragons."

Dany had been quick with her retort and defense of their host--to Jorah's obvious vexation which, if she read him accurately, was borne of jealousy as much as suspicion, and filled her with a perverse desire to make her knight squirm.

"You were there, too, ser," she'd said, "and you saw how Xaro lurked in the shadows, taking our measure while Quaithe revered us and Pyat Pree fawned over us. And then he warned us away from Pree. Given your encounter with Quaithe at the wharf, I should think you would be glad we have come under Daxos' protection rather than that of a priestess and a warlock."

"I should have been gladder if he'd shown us the protection of paying our passage out of this city."

"And where would you have us sail?" Dany had asked, in all sincerity. "To Asshai, as Quaithe recommends? To Pentos, where you insist the assassins of three proclaimed Baratheon kings undoubtedly will be looking for me?"

At that, Jorah's shoulders had sagged with his confession. "I don't know where I would have us go. But neither do I know why you insist on staying _here_."

In truth, Dany had fallen a little in love with the city. Unlike anywhere her wandering life had taken her, in Qarth she found it easy to pretend she was a queen. Not a _khaleesi_ , but a real queen with a crown and a throne. And a pleasure barge--when she conquered Westeros, she simply must have a pleasure barge to carry her and her Queensguard and her courtiers up and down the Blackwater Rush, or even out into the sea, all lit with colored lanterns such as these to make the boat look like a cluster of jewels as it glided across the waters to tunes piped and harped and sung of Aegon's conquest in days of old and her own glorious return to the kingdom.

Someday.

For now, she found the domed roof of Qarth's Temple of Memory amid the striking architecture of the city and imagined it was the Sept of Baelor in King's Landing. When Xaro had taken them in and they'd seen the traditional sacrifices being made, Jorah had snorted and remarked that in Westeros, the only people who still sacrificed to their gods were savages whom the civilized folk kept well behind an impregnable Wall. Not desirous of inviting Jorah's scorn to interrupt her daydreams, Dany kept quiet about her find and pointed out a parapet instead.

"There," she said, glancing over her shoulder to where Jorah reclined at the low table behind her. "I can just see Xaro's palace. Our chamber is on this side--imagine the view we would have of the canal if we were but a few floors higher."

"Would that we had a view where we could see that Rhaego and your dragon's eggs are safe," came the knight's gruff reply.

With a sigh, Dany turned to face him, her hands stretched out on either side to rest on the gilt railing of the barge. Jorah had not at all liked the idea of leaving Rhaego with a wet nurse and a nursemaid while they attended this wedding, even though Dany had allowed Xaro's servants to assist with the care of her child of late and had solicited her knight's grudging admission that the women were trustworthy enough and fawned over the baby sufficiently to befit a prince.

"If Xaro meant harm to me or my own," she said, not for the first time, "he'd have acted long before now. Why won't you trust him?"

Jorah wiped the glistening juices of his meat form the corners of his mouth and looked hard at her. "Why won't you _mis_ trust him?"

Dany pushed off the railing and approached him, looking down at him from across the low table. "Because I will eventually have to give my trust to someone, if I am to have my throne."

"You think he may give you an army." At Dany's nod, he scowled. "I thought you agreed with me that you should wait out the war in Westeros before you invade with a foreign army."

"If I have a large enough army, it will not matter how many rally together against me. And they will all be my subjects in the end."

The knight sat up straighter, and Dany marveled at how his presence seemed to loom over her even from his position of looking up at her.

"It's your son the crones prophesied to be the stallion who mounts the world, Daenerys. Not you."

Dany's temper flared. It was not the first time doubt flickered through her mind that Ser Jorah had given her his service because he supported her queenship. But that was madness; though he'd said himself there was little he wouldn't do for love, she couldn't believe that devotion to her _person_ would spur him to imperil his own life in the Red Waste. Unless she sat on the Iron Throne, he would never sit in his hall on Bear Island, and she believed in her heart that home was his first love, not her. Even if he believed otherwise, her stubborn, loyal bear.

In any case, this quarrel had been ongoing for weeks, and she was disinclined to have it out again here, for the beauty of the night and the quality of the wine and the closeness of her dreams of being queen. She extinguished her anger as easily as if it were a bedside candle to snuff out, and moved around the table to Jorah, smiling at him.

"Of course I am not the one to mount the world. I am the dragon, and have no need of mounts. I have wings."

Jorah actually gave a small laugh at that, his first in longer than she could remember that was not an unpleasant, mocking one. His face was so much more comely when he smiled--she could easily imagine how, in the flush of valor and victory, his joy had charmed Lynesse Hightower into accepting his hand. The careworn lines of his troubled existence gave way to ones instead that spoke of an experienced and storied one. And as his lips parted over good teeth, shining in the light with the juices of savory food and sweet drink, she remembered how soft and gentle they could be upon her own.

She extended her hand to him so that he might assist her to sit once more upon the cushions beside him, and even after she was situated comfortably, she did not let go. It felt good to be in contact with his body again, if not with his heart and mind. He'd not shared her bed since that morning when he'd rejected her attempt to pleasure him, and though she had not wished to, after he'd humiliated her so--she was his queen!--there was no denying that she'd missed his strong and reassuring presence. The surprising tenderness of one who could be so gruff. The simple feel of his strong, callused fingers woven through hers and his roughened palm flush with hers.

She regarded him from beneath an arched eyebrow as she sipped her wine. "But I thought you had no use for prophesies."

It was not often that she caught her vigilant knight off his guard, but for once Ser Jorah looked truly nonplussed. Dany would have laughed, except that he pulled his hand from hers.

"I never said--"

"Your eyes do," Dany interrupted. "You humor me, when you speak of stallions mounting worlds. I know you are a man of reason, my knight, with little room for faith. And you know that I, too, am skeptical of such things after the maegi Mirri Maz Duur killed my husband with her art."

"Then surely you may appreciate my view that after her betrayal, you should be slower to accept strangers as allies."

With a start, Dany recognized the emotion in his eyes as they held her, unblinking. She had seen it in Drogo's eyes, when he'd looked upon her after her bloodriders reported the attempt on her life in the Western Market. Seven gods, how had she been so blind? Jorah did not fight her at every turn because he would control her, but because he would protect her!

She reached her hand up to trace the furrows of his brow, and was pleased to see them ease slightly with the light touch of her fingers. His breath hitched. He, like Khal Drogo, would ride to war for her. She settled her hand on the curve of his neck exposed above the green silken collar of his fine tunic, which had been made expressly for this occasion, and she felt the heat of him, and the strong, quick beat of his pulse. When she drew him down so she could brush her lips across his prickly cheek to his ear, he snaked his arm boldly around her waist.

"Will you still worry for me when I have won my throne?" she whispered to him.

Jorah turned his head, so that his reply was a breath on her lips. "Aye. And more, my queen."

Dany closed her eyes in anticipation of his sweet mouth melting into hers, his tongue sweeping away the bitterness that had separated them these weeks, but instead Jorah tensed, and she opened her eyes to see him staring up at the deck above them, where the wedding party feasted. She turned just as Xaro called down to them.

"My esteemed guests! Would you not like to admire my city from on high?"

Though part of Dany regretted the interruption, Jorah had not so thoroughly distracted her from her earlier daydreams that she was not excited by Xaro's invitation. "We would be honored!"

" _You_ would be honored," Jorah muttered, releasing her. "It's evident in our host's timing that he esteems me only out of courtesy to you."

That she'd gone from wanting to kiss this man to wanting to slap him made Dany glad she _hadn't_ kissed him. Was there no end to Jorah's petty suspicions and jealousies? Was there naught she could do to make him trust her judgment, or her favor?

"As well he should," she hissed. " _I_ am the queen."

She swept from him and forced her wide smile at Xaro not to falter as she heard Jorah growl at one of the serving boys to fetch him more wine. A goblet awaited her when she had climbed up to Xaro, and, as he guided her away from the noisy party to the prow, she drank it quickly to make her vexation with Jorah recede like the waves as the barge cut smoothly through the dark water. It was of a finer vintage than they had been served below, and she took a perverse satisfaction in knowing that Jorah was missing out. Were he only aware of his punishment.

"How many moons have passed since I brought you to my city?" Xaro's voice broke gently into Dany's thoughts, his softly accented Valyrian putting Dany as much at ease as his good wine. "Two?"

"Nearer to three," she replied.

"And I see you like Qarth very much."

The sun had dipped below the horizon, a sliver of orange just reflected in the water, so Dany could not, at present, see much of the city. She smiled at its silhouette against the blue-black midnight sky, however, and answered, "Qarth will always hold a special place for me. My sweet son gave me his first smiles here. He learned to sit on his own, and he begins to crawl." On his belly, like a lizard, she did not add--her little dragon.

Xaro smiled fondly, the jewels in his nose catching the light of the lanterns strung from pillar to pillar about the perimeter of the barge. "There are fine tutors in Qarth, when Rhaego comes of age to study. Should you ever like to live here permanently?"

"Oh, I…" A downward glance revealed a swallow of wine to remain in her goblet. She drank it, and said, "We talk of returning home soon."

"Of course." Xaro's breath ruffled her hair like a light breeze as he leaned close and murmured, "You would have to have a very big arse indeed to reach the Iron Throne of Westeros from Qarth."

Before Dany could comprehend what he was saying or doing, his long fingers cupped her buttock and gave it a squeeze.

"And yours is certainly just the right size to please a man."

Dany jerked away from him, her goblet clattering to the deck, though no one of the wedding party noticed or looked her way. She wondered if Jorah had heard it, below.

"Pardons, my prince, but I do not understand you."

He leered--not lustfully, as she'd seen him look at the young men who served in his house--and pressed the tips of his ringed fingers together. "I've just paid your arse a pretty compliment."

"I do not think my husband would like that."

With Xaro's approach, Dany backed against the railing that overhung the lower deck, where Jorah was seated, and prayed for his watchful eye, which she had earlier brashly scorned, to be turned to her.

"Jorah Mormont is no more your husband than you were a captive of the Dothraki."

Jorah's full name spat from Xaro's lips was more astonishing and alarming to Dany than the reference to the Iron Throne. "What did you say?"

"Ser Jorah Mormont," Xaro repeated, looking like a fox in the ruddy lantern light. "The exiled knight, formerly of Bear Island. I believe he was called Jorah the Andal by those in your husband's _khalasar_ , Dany. Or should I say _Daenerys_ , daughter of Aerys of House Targaryen, rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms?"

Dany opened her mouth in a desperate rebuttal, but Xaro put a long, pale finger, on which rested a large ruby, to her lips.

"I was most relieved to discover you both have other occupations, because you'll never get anywhere as actors. Captives?" A chuckle rattled in his throat. "Mormont never submitted to anyone in his life, that was clear from the moment we met, and neither of you cringes before your betters or lowers your eyes in shame, and you love that babe too much for him to have been gotten on you by a Dothraki raper, and you don't love the knight _enough_ , though I will grant that he does not feign his devotion to you."

For some reason, though it was true enough, Dany was most rankled by Xaro's assessment of her feelings for Jorah. But it would not do to press him on any point. He knew all.

"What price for your silence?" she asked.

"Oh no, Your Grace, you misunderstand me. It is I who wish to buy _you_ something."

"And what would that be?"

Daxos' eyes and teeth gleamed gold in the lantern light. "A fleet, my queen, to bear you to Westeros. Or rather, _us_. And I would not buy you a fleet so much as give you one. For a wedding gift."

She thought she should be afraid, but Dany felt only a sensation that her chest had been emptied of rib and muscle and fiber and muscle, so that her heart hung suspended in the breathless chamber. "You offer me your hand?"

"Would it be plainer if I dropped to one knee?" he asked, doing exactly that; somehow, Dany could not imagine Jorah doing the same. As if reading her thoughts, Xaro smiled shrewdly up at her. "Is not a merchant prince a more fitting consort for a queen than an exiled knight?"

Dany was so dazed by what had transpired that she had no memory of telling Xaro she must take time to consider his offer or of descending to the lower level of his pleasure barge until Jorah's scowling face, waiting for her at the bottom, greeted her.

"You're pale," he said, on his feet at once and striding across the deck to her. "What has Daxos said to you?"

"That he wants to give me a fleet."

A heartbeat of silence as Jorah took this in with a blink, and then he took her roughly by the shoulders. "You little fool, what did you tell him?"

Dany had no thought of slapping him until she had already cracked him hard across the cheek, the sound of it cutting almost like lightning through the buzz of activity of the cooks and scullery maids and serving boys ceased as they turned in surprise to look.

"You forget yourself, ser! I am your queen, and you are a knight in my service. I told Xaro nothing he could not guess from _your_ behavior."

Above his beard, Jorah's cheek reddened, the individual streaks of each of Dany's fingers evident, but he did not lift his own hand to rub it. "What price does he name for this fleet?"

Lifting her chin defiantly, Dany answered, "Only my hand."

" _Only_." Jorah snorted. "At least you are a little better than Viserys. You would sell yourself for your crown, rather than those little ones who are under your power."

At that moment, she would gladly trade Jorah for a fleet--if anyone were fool enough to take such an insolent knight off her hands.

"I would _give_ myself," she said. "I am, after all, free to do so."

Although Dany restrained her hand from striking him again for his disrespect, her words alone made Jorah cringed as he had not from the physical blow; when he spoke again, it was not to argue, but to advise.

"Surely you see that Daxos does not _only_ ask for your hand. Think what you witnessed today at this Qartheen marriage. What do you have that Daxos might ask for?"

Her dragon's eggs, he meant, though she hadn't even told Jorah the full truth of what had happened that day she'd sent him away and Daxos had come to her.

He'd seen the eggs--one of them, anyway. But she'd lied to him about what it was, said it was just a strange rock she'd found in the ruins of Vaes Tolorro. Some wrecked thing salvaged from the Dothraki plunder, which had captivated her. She'd told herself then that Daxos believed her, though now, given how he'd sussed everything else, she was sure he knew she'd lied about that, too.

But she was not about to let a knight make a fool of her.

"I find it interesting, ser, that you accuse a man of playing me false to take what is precious to me, when you would have me sell them for mere coin."

She turned from him, intending to rejoin Xaro--who was watching from above--but Jorah caught her wrist and pulled her back toward him, a look of mad desperation on his face.

"Daenerys, you can't--"

But before he could go further, a distant shout diverted their attention. They looked to see a skiff rowing toward them, very fast, bearing Xaro's colors, an urgent man standing in the prow. Dany recognized him as the steward.

"My prince! Your palace--"

"Is finer than any king's in the world!" Xaro called down, and the wedding party laughed. "Tell me something I don't know!"

"Your guards are slain by vandals and…You have been _robbed_!"

A collective gasp went up from the wedding party, and Xaro lost no time coming down to the main deck to speak with his steward, Dany at his heels and Jorah still keeping hold of her, the conversation about her dragon's eggs recent enough that her first instinct was to fear for them.

"What was taken?" he asked, leaping agilely over the edge of the barge and down into the rowboat.

"It is not a question of _what_ ," replied the steward, looking beyond his master until his eyes locked with Dany's; she did not resist when Jorah's hand, which still clasped her wrist, slid down to grip her hand as the man pronounced, "but of _whom_."


	15. Mad House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Dany rejects the terms to buy Rhaego's safe return, Jorah must pay the price.

The nursemaid and the wet nurse lay on deep plush rugs stained red with the blood that had drained from their slit throats, but it was sight of the empty cradle at which Jorah nearly dropped his sword. Well, not _entirely_ empty; in the child's stead, Rhaego's kidnappers had left a bundle of blue leaves. Daxos' steward had told them on the way to the palace from the pleasure barge that Dany's son had been taken, that did not make it any easier to _see_ that it was so; nor did Jorah's familiarity with the brutality of war, even violence toward innocent women and children, stop his heart from plummeting to the soles of his feet though he managed to grip the hilt of his sword before it could clatter from his slackened fingers. This wasn't war, and it wasn't just any child, it was--

 _Not his own._ But Rhaego might be the closest he would ever come to having a child.

Dany, however, ran straight past the cradle through their ransacked chamber--clearly, the people who had taken Rhaego had been looking for something other than the child--to the fireplace.

It had been rather alarming to Jorah when, in the course of all their arguments about whether it would be safe to attend the wedding feast to which Daxos had invited them, Dany had shown more concern for the safety of her dragon's eggs than about leaving Rhaego in the care of their host's hired women. At her bidding, Jorah had pried loose one of the tiles so that the eggs would fit in the open space between it and the fireplace framework. Now she displayed no such caution, pulling away the tile and peering into the gap as Daxos looked on curiously. Seeing the egg safely ensconced as she had left it heaved a sigh and pushed the tile back into place; as she turned back to face the men, Daxos took an interest in the cradle.

"Shade of the evening," he said, reaching down into it and plucking out one of the indigo leaves.

At once Jorah understood."Pyat Pree is the kidnapper."

On the journey from Vaes Tolorro, Dany had asked the warlock what made his lips blue, and Pree had explained that the warlocks of Qarth drank shade of the evening to open their minds to the truths within the House of the Undying, the source of their power in the city--whatever in the seven hells _that_ meant.

Now, Dany's eyes were like purple flames that threatened to consume Daxos as she glowered at him. "And you, no doubt, are in league with him. That _is_ why you invited us to your feast tonight, is it not?"

Apparently Daxos had no fear of fire. He smiled at Dany as placidly as the river upon which his pleasure barge floated. "Why would I have proposed marriage to you if I were in league with a warlock? When someone has something I want, I obtain it through good business. I have a reputation to uphold, Your Grace."

He made an elegant bow, the jewels in his nose winking with his movement, but Dany seemed to take his courtesy for mockery.

"You lie! Ser Jorah, make his tongue confess where Pyat Pree holds my child, and then take it from him."

Jorah still held his sword, and he raised it-- _not_ , however, to do as Dany bid him, but rather to sheathe it.

"Jorah--"

"My queen," he interrupted her with a glance at Daxos, who seemed more amused than afraid, "doubtless you will find this strange coming from me, but I believe the man."

For an instant her eyes rounded, the exposed whites making it seem as if the purple flames burned more hotly. Just as quickly the fire was extinguished by the tears that suddenly welled and spilled into Dany's hands as they covered her face and she crumpled onto the divan which had served as Jorah's bed for the past weeks.

"My son," she sobbed, her voice muffled by her hands. "How could I leave him?"

"There is hope, Daenerys," said Jorah, crouching before her. Gently, he took her wrists and drew her hands from her tear-streaked, reddened face. "Rhaego is alive, that is certain, so that Pree may hold him for ransom. If he'd found what he was looking for, all would be lost. But we can get your child back. You can give Pree what he wants."

But rather than be consoled by Jorah's speech, Dany looked all the more anguished. She pulled her hands from Jorah's grasp, nearly stumbling over him as she stood.

"Don't you see? The ransom is like asking me to trade one child for another. How can I choose between my children?"

"Daenerys, listen to yourself." With some effort, Jorah pushed to his feet and caught her by the shoulders. "Do you hear what you are saying? Not to be able to choose between the life of your living child--Khal Drogo's son--or a dragon's egg that has been petrified for hundreds of years…" He shook her slightly. "In your grief you talk madness."

"Madness?" Dany shrank back from his touch, her eyes narrowed on him, but, disconcertingly, not seeming to see him. "You call me mad, ser? Daenerys Targaryen, the Mad Queen? Will I be the Scab Queen as well, once I sit upon my throne of swords?"

Jorah had no notion of how to answer, and was grateful when Dany did not give him the chance.

"Xaro," she said, turning to the merchant prince, who had been watching this whole interchange with interest. "Where does Pyat Pree hold my son?"

"No doubt, in the House of the Undying."

"Then you must send in soldiers to rescue him."

Daxos laughed. " _I_ must, Your Grace?"

"It is what I ask of you for our marriage."

"That is not the way it is done, sweetling," Daxos said, and though Jorah had not been tempted to cut out his tongue at Dany's earlier command, he considered it now, upon hearing him address her with an endearment in reference to their potential marriage. "And even if it did, soldiers do not go into the House of the Undying. Many enter, but few leave, so say the warlocks."

"Very well, then," said Dany. "I have a soldier of my own. I will send him."

"My queen--" Jorah began.

Dany turned to him, her eyes like the storm clouds for which she was named. "If you bear my child any love…"

"I love Rhaego as if he were my own seed." His eyes went to the empty cradle, and his tongue and throat felt thick. He swallowed painfully, and when he spoke again it was with a hoarse voice."But my queen, I fear this is folly--"

"If you love _me_ …"

Anger flared suddenly, squelching grief. "You entreat my love though a moment ago you contemplated marriage to another?"

Dany opened her mouth in retort, but Jorah held up a hand to silence her even as his own words tumbled out, unrestrained.

"If I do go, what awards awaits me on my victorious return? Will you give me your favor to wear into the House of the Undying?"

"This is no tourney, ser," Dany hissed. "I am no prize to be won. I am not Lynesse Hightower, waiting to be crowned your Queen of Love and Beauty."

" _Lynesse_?" Jorah repeated, this turn in their argument taking him so utterly by surprise that his anger fled. "Is _that_ what you think?"

He could not help but laugh, though he knew it was grossly inappropriate in this moment. But he was relieved--immensely so--to at last understand why Dany seemed to want him and reject him by turns. One step closed the gap between them, and his hands found her hips.

"Daenerys, I do not love you because I would replace her, I--"

"I hate to interrupt such a heart-wrenching love scene," drawled Daxos in bored tones over Jorah, "but every moment the queen's child remains within the House of the Undying places him in greater danger."

Dany reached up and laid a small but firm hand upon Jorah shoulder. Her violet eyes were so beautiful as they shimmered up at him, imploring, that he thought he might be lost in them.

He _was_ lost when she asked, "Will you go, ser?"

His shoulders sagged beneath her hand, as if it weighed as heavily and dangerously on him as a dragon's taloned paw.

"I will do whatever my queen asks of me," he said. "I did say there was little I wouldn't do for love."

~*~

  
" _This_ is the seat of the warlocks' power?" Jorah said as he reined his mount to a halt before the building to which Xaro Xhoan Daxos had led them, looming before them out of the shroud of predawn mist. Once it had been a great manse of grey stone, but now it was a ruin; the only inhabitants Jorah could imagine for it were quite the opposite of _un_ dying.

The trees, on the other hand, seemed to thrive, the wreck of a house ensconced by the abundant blue foliage that hung from low, untended boughs. With a rustle, the warlock Pyat Pree emerged from the grove, his hands apparently clasped at his navel, though concealed by the folds of the wide sleeves of his robe which matched his lips so exactly that Jorah wondered if it had been dyed with the leaves that gave shade of the evening its color.

Pree's eyes seemed to look through Jorah to Dany, who was mounted behind him. "Are you come to ransom your child, Mother of Dragons?"

Dany clung tightly to Jorah's waist as she leaned around him to view her child's kidnapper, but her voice was strong and steady as she called out in answer. "No--to rescue him."

The warlock's cackle shattered the silence of the wood, which Jorah found strangely relieving rather than discomfiting. At least, until he had dismounted from his saddle and drawn his sword and Pree fell silent and fixed his dark eyes on him.

"By all means, try, good ser. Though your sword and armor will not help you within this house, and your lady will have to ransom _your_ life, as well as her babe's."

Robes whispering across the grass, Pree slunk away, into the ruin. Jorah turned to take one last look at Dany before following. He startled at the sight of Quaithe standing behind the two horses, her gleaming red mask unnaturally vibrant in the early morning dim.

"This House is no place for a knight," she said, passing soundlessly between the horses, running her fingers along the flanks of Jorah's chestnut upon which Dany sat. "The Mother of Dragons should treat with the Undying for her own child."

"I would be no knight if I sent a lady where I feared to tread."

For the first time since he'd met her, Jorah thought he saw a glimmer of something like emotion in the eyes which made him think Quaithe _might_ actually be smiling behind the red lacquered mask. Daxos did. Though smirked might be a more apt description.

"You _have_ chosen a true knight to be your champion," he said, bringing his mount closer alongside Dany's.

But her gaze never wavered from Quaithe as the red-robed priestess approached Jorah. When she stood before him, she held up her hand; between her thumb and third finger she held a phial that contained a draught the exact hue as the blue-leaved trees.

"Shade of the evening. To open your mind to the truths of past and future inside."

"Like the warlocks, eh?" Jorah took the phial from her and turned it over in his fingers. "According to our friend Daxos, blue lips tell lies."

He opened his palm and let the phial fall; the ground being soft with morning dew, it did not break, so Jorah raised his foot and smashed the glass under his boot. Well might it be that he would not exit the House of the Undying, but neither would he meet the gods with blue lips.

"I would face the truth as I see it, priestess, with my wits about me."

He stepped past the masked woman, knocking shoulders with her as he did so, and strode to Dany's mount, dropping to one knee before her in the mud.

"If I should fail, my queen, know that I have died for love of you, and commend me to the gods." He looked up at her and stared her full in the eye. "And by all means, sell the bloody eggs and take Rhaego someplace safe till he is grown."

He started to get up, but before he could push himself off the ground, Dany bid him wait. She slipped down from the chestnut's back and marched up to Jorah. Before he could think what she was doing, she had unpinned his cloak, replacing the plain brooch with the onyx one he'd bought for her at the quay. Jorah touched it, then looked up at her, not understanding the significance of her gesture.

"It was meant for you," he said.

"Then you will have to bring it back to me," Dany said. "Along with my son."

Jorah bowed his head, and he drew in his breath sharply at the touch of her fingers in his hair, the brush of her lips across the top where it thinned, though it was the sort of kiss a queen might give to any knight. When she withdrew from him he stood, gripped his sword, and went forth. If the bear pinned at his throat betokened Dany's favor, it felt nothing like when Lynesse sent him to joust with her kerchief tied around his arm. Not that he imagined for a moment that rescuing his queen's child was at all the same as riding for a lady in a tournament, but he might have had a promise to spur him onward. Instead, his steps were weighted down by his armor and the heavy knowledge that while Dany _might_ accept his love, his life was worth less to her than one of her precious dragon's eggs.

"Many doors may open to you," came Quaithe's voice at his shoulder just as he reached the threshold of the House of the Undying; he had not noticed her come alongside him. "Go through none but the right one."

"If you mean to guide me, priestess," he said with a grunt, pushing through the surprisingly heavy front door, which, from the outside, had appeared rotten, "you might be less cryptic. The right one? Do you mean the _correct_ door, or the one to my right side?"

But he was standing inside a small room which contained nothing but four walls, each with a door at the center, and Quaithe was no longer outside the one by which he'd entered. Drawing a breath, Jorah brandished his sword and shouldered through the door at his right.

It took him to a corridor, the left side of which was lined with closed doors. Deciding that Quaithe must have spoken literally about going to the right, he did not tarry in indecision over which door to try, but strode confidently on down the hall, until he came to the end of it and to a single door at the right hand side.

He went through it, emerging into a corridor identical to the one before it, but for one difference: the doors that lined the hall stood open. Thinking perhaps that this might be some sort of test, he trained his eyes straight ahead of him and walked past one, two, three doors, without glancing to see what was within. By the fourth door, however, his curiosity got the better of him, and he looked to his left.

What Jorah saw made him stop in his tracks, his sword hand hanging at his side, the other gripping the door frame.

It was a bedchamber, but not just any bedchamber, fitted out exactly like the timbered room that had been his in his hall on Bear Island. Heavy draperies were drawn to keep out any hint of light, which had not been his preference--House Mormont might have taken the bear for its sigil, but that didn't mean he liked to hibernate through the long winters like those animals did; he slept with the curtains open, so that if he woke in the night he could see the familiar silhouettes of the pines against the velvet sky, and the first rays of sun would wake him at break of day so he might make the most of the too brief winter days.

But he'd seen the room thus before. Thrice--when the midwives had confined Elianor to bleed away his babes in their marriage bed. And there she lay now, in the great bed of ancient pine with posts carved in the fierce maws of bears, her face as white as the sheets, so drawn in pain and sorrow that she looked a much older woman than she was. She lay so still that Jorah thought she must be dead, and he was about to move on when the faintest of mewls beckoned him back. Elianor's lashes parted--long and dark, one of the few lovely features Jorah had to contemplate when they were intimate--and she turned her head just enough that she could look at him with one eye, and her fingers moved on the counterpane in the feeblest attempt at reaching out to him.

Jorah's own hand went out to her, when he remembered that he had already held Elianor's hand as she died with their third child--years ago.

This was not real. It was the craft of warlocks. His fingers closed around the door handle, instead of the phantom hand, and he pulled it shut with a bang that sent forth a cloud of dust, as if he had closed an old book. He hurried down the corridor, his armor clanking, until he found the right-hand door at the end.

He roared in frustration to find himself in yet another door-lined hall. Was he going in circles? He hurried on, the open doors to his left tempting his gaze. In one marched a coffle of slaves, naked and chained, their faces branded beyond recognition even if Jorah had been able to recall what the poachers he had sold looked like. They must have been the very men, as Eddard Stark loomed in the next room, wielding Longclaw. No, not Ned, a younger man, scarcely more than a boy, clad all in black as a brother of the Night's Watch. But Jorah could never mistake that sword. _His_ sword. The youth who was _not_ Ned Stark looked down at Longclaw in bewilderment and mumbled his thanks to--

"Father?" Jorah said aloud. Instinctively, his arms went out to embrace the Old Bear, when he realized that his father had not heard him--of course not, because this _was not real_. Even so, the thought did little to extinguish the rage that burned in Jorah's breast as he comprehended the scene that had unfolded before him. Jeor Mormont might have renounced his right to a family when he'd taken the black, but somehow he'd gotten himself a new son.

" _It's not real_ ," Jorah growled through clenched teeth as he turned down another corridor, and it was easier to believe as he passed a doorway that revealed Dany, naked and hugely pregnant and squatting in the midst of flame to push three eggs from her body, each of which hatched a baby dragon that flapped leathery batlike wings and leapt up to suckle at her breasts alongside Rhaego.

Madder still was the sight of a fully grown Rhaego--it had to be Rhaego, for he was huge and copper-skinned like his father Khal Drogo but silver of hair and violet of eye like Dany--astride a three-headed dragon with the shaggy black body of a bear, leading an army of Dothraki horselords to trample whights and Others.

Jorah broke into a run, determined to find his way through this maze of a house without further distraction. Where in seven hells was Rhaego? At that thought, he forced himself to slow down, so that he might hear the child's cries above the clanking of his armor and the pounding of blood in his ears and his own ragged breaths. Rhaego _would_ be crying, frightened of the strangers who'd taken him, hungry without his mother's milk. Unless Pyat Pree had worked some fell magic to silence the babe.

A sound _did_ prick Jorah's ears at that moment, though not one of Rhaego's shrill cries, to which he'd grown so accustomed to waking in the middle of the night this past half a year. From the doorway at the end of the corridor, on the left side, drifted a song:

_A bear there was,_   
_A bear, a bear!_   
_All black and brown,_   
_And covered with hair!_

  
The ribald song had never been a favorite of Jorah's, least of all since it had been sung by those who had mocked his courtship of Lynesse. Now, like a siren's call, it beckoned him toward the source.

_"Oh come," they said,_   
_"Oh come to the fair!"_   
_"The fair?" said he,_   
_"But I'm a bear!_   
_"All black and brown,_   
_"And covered in hair!"_

  
As he approached the door, Jorah braced himself for some disturbing vision of Lynesse, perhaps in the throes of passion with her merchant prince Tregar Ormollen. Jorah had no wish to see that, of course, but he was prompted forward by his curiosity to see who the singer was that beckoned him in such a strange voice: tuneless, almost squawking; if he didn't know better, he would think it was that damnable raven perpetually roosted on his father's shoulder. Peering around the edge of the door, which was two flaps of deer hide, he saw that the raven _was_ the singer, cawing out the words as he circled around a wattle and daub room with a thatched ceiling and a floor of mud--or shit.

And in the filth lay a bear, blood pouring from a gash in his belly as crows swarmed over him, some pecking out his eyes and pulling out tufts of his matted fur as others squabbled over his entrails, the voices of all taking up the refrain along with the raven:

_"I called for a knight!_   
_"But you're a bear!_   
_"A bear! A bear,_   
_"All black and brown,_   
_"And covered in hair!"_

  
Jorah stood, transfixed, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword--not Longclaw, he thought, remembering the other vision, someone else had Longclaw now--waiting for the bear to snap at the crows, to swipe at them with his great sharp claws. But the bear never moved. The old bear was dead. The Old Bear!

With a roar, Jorah clutched his sword in both hands and charged forward into the room, swinging madly at the crows, scattering them off the corpse. The Old Bear might have claimed a new cub, but while Jorah drew breath, he would never see his father become a feast for crows. But though Jorah slashed at the birds with the same fury that had come over him when he'd charged through the gates of Pyke and won his spurs, no blood rained down on him that he might taste the sweetness of vengeance. Black feathers swirled about him, but no dead crows; indeed, the feathers seemed to turn into more crows, their wings spread and beating so thickly that Jorah lost sight of the Old Bear in the shit and the mud and even of the flash of his blade in the air. And all joined in the song, their squawks so loud in Jorah's ears that he could not think of anything else.

_Then she sighed and squealed,_   
_And kicked the air._   
_"She sang: My bear so fair,"_   
_And off they went,_   
_The bear! The bear!_   
_And the maiden fair!_

  
The crows descended upon him, pressing him down into the mire with their feet. They drove their singing beaks into him, plucked at his entrails, pecked out his eyes.

"Forgive me!" Jorah screamed as he plunged into a world as black as the cloak he had sworn never to wear, though he did not know who he petitioned: his father, or Dany, or Rhaego, or the men he had sold, or Eddard Stark, or the gods old and new.

He did not know, because he knew nothing.


	16. Counting Costs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany realizes where her true treasure lies.

"Dany?"

At the sound of Jorah's voice, she lifted her head from where she lay against his shoulder, drowsing. But, finding his eyes still closed, his face as motionless and expressionless as when she'd lain down with him gods knew how long ago, she decided she must have imagined him uttering her name. It wouldn't be the first time. In fact, it had happened more times than she could count, so that her eyes ceased to well with disappointment when she saw what her wishful heart had betrayed her senses yet again.

 _This_ time, however, just as she started to lower her head once more onto her knight's shoulder, the only pillow she wanted on these long, sleepless nights, Jorah's forehead creased as his brows knit together. And then, all at once, the lines of his face folded in on themselves in a grimace and--her ears did _not_ deceive her--he cleared his throat. Most wonderfully of all, his eyelids cracked open just enough that she could make out the bright color she had missed while keeping vigil at his bedside in the dim ship's cabin.

"I'm here, sweet ser," she said. Clutching one of his large hands in both of hers, she sat up in the bunk and drew his fingers--thank the gods, they were warm now, curled around hers where they had been cold and unresponsive to her touch, for which she knew he longed--to her lips. "I've been with you all the time."

"I'm alive?" Jorah's voice was raspy with disuse. "The crows haven't eaten me? Nor the Old Bear?"

He must refer to something he had dreamed during his days of unconsciousness, or that he'd seen in the House of the Undying, but, as he was clearly in a state of confusion, Dany did not trouble him for an explanation. She did, however--reluctantly--release him with one of her hands to reach for skin of water on the shelf beside the bunk, and put it to his lips to relieve his dry throat.

"Slowly," she cautioned him as he gulped it down. "You haven't been eaten. Well--" She interrupted herself with a soft chuckle. "Rhaego has gnawed on your shoulder a fair bit. I think he cuts a tooth."

In fact her son had been fitful since Pyat Pree kidnapped him, and though Dany had resorted to taking Rhaego into bed with her, where he could comfort himself with her breast throughout the night, as he'd done when he was a newborn babe, he was never so peaceful as when she laid him on Jorah's chest and wrapped her knight's strong arms around the babe. And she hadn't thought it was her imagination that the lines on Jorah's face had seemed less deeply etched whenever Rhaego tucked his little face into the curve of his neck. At the moment, Rhaego slept as quietly in his cradle as he had since the warlock gave him back to her, as though he knew Jorah had awakened, and that was enough to make his world safe again. How well Dany understood the feeling.

Jorah seemed to be focused on other feelings at the moment. Frowning again in pain, he turned his head from the spout of the waterskin, and brought his free hand up to clutch his forehead. "Why does it feel as if I'd had my head cloven in two by a battleaxe?"

Dany put the waterskin aside and stroked his thin hair back. "The maester said you might be in some pain after you'd found your way out."

He'd screwed his eyes shut, but now cracked one open to peer at her. "Out from where?"

From his own mind--but Dany didn't think he was up to the amount of explanation that would be required to make sense of that.

"I'll explain when you're more awake."

She half-expected him to argue, as he always did no matter what she said, but he only nodded his head weakly on his pillow and let his eyes drift shut again.

"At least tell me where I've found my way out _to_? I seem to be rocking, but I doubt you've laid me in Rhaego's cradle. Are we at sea?"

Jorah's bewilderment might have been amusing, were it not so disconcerting to think how much had transpired of which her vigilant knight was unaware. She'd never realized how fully she'd come to rely upon his council--not to mention his seemingly boundless strength--until she'd been without either. She found herself clutching his hand now, as much for her own reassurance as to comfort him, and she struggled to make him an answer in a steady voice.

"We are. Xaro gave me one of his ships."

The lines of Jorah's face deepened. "Did you have to marry him for it?"

Dany _did_ laugh at that; even when recovering from a malady brought on by dark magic, Jorah had it in him to be jealous. She kissed his hand again. "No, my green-eyed knight, I did not. Though I am glad you remember that offer was on the table."

His fingers tightened around hers, as if strength had suddenly surged into him, and his eyes opened fully. "I remember only up until I entered the House of the Undying. And the crows. There were so many crows. What happened after?"

Dany sighed, and realized that her reticence to talk about those events was more for her own sake than for his. She didn't want to talk about it, because talking would require her to remember. But Jorah had risked his life to save Rhaego--and the dragon's egg which she'd refused to give up for her child. For that she owed him much, at the very least an explanation.

She stretched herself alongside him in the narrow bunk, draping one arm across his chest, her fingers splaying out over his strong, steadily beating heart. "You were inside for hours and hours."

"No, I can't believe that…it didn't feel like hours."

To Dany it had seemed _years_ : years that he was within, years that he had lain without making so much movement as a twitch from his muscles, nor emitting even a moan from his vocal chords. And the first hour had not passed before she'd begun to regret what she had done, sending him in there when she'd had the means to get her son back without wasting lives. What sort of queen was she?

"At last Pree came out and said that you had become lost. So I paid the ransom, and he released Rhaego to me, and found you."

"Rhaego was unharmed?" Jorah pushed himself up on his elbow and leaned over Dany so that he could see the cradle on the floor beside their bunk.

"He was hungry," Dany answered, remembering how her son had been wailing when the warlock placed him in her arms. Rhaego had been so overwrought that even though she'd offered him her breast immediately as they rode back to Xaro's palace, he could not suckle. And though Jorah had slumped like a dead man in front of Xaro on his mount, it had seemed to Dany that he was telling her again how mad she'd been to hesitate about trading a dragon's egg for her son, while even now, he inquired after a child who was not his even before he thought about himself.

" _I'm_ hungry," Jorah announced suddenly.

Though she hated to leave his side even more now that he was awake than she had when he lay unconscious, Dany did not hesitate to climb down from the bunk, relieved for a distraction from her thoughts.

"I have a little bread and cheese and salt pork," she said, going over to the table where the aforementioned foodstuffs lay. "Or I could go to the galley--Jorah!" she cried out, interrupting herself when movement in her periphery redirected her attention to the bed.

He had sat up fully and thrown his long, bare legs over the edge of the bunk; he was clad only in a linen shirt just long enough to cover his manhood and buttocks, yet reveal an expanse of well-muscled thighs which, for all her concern, Dany couldn't help admiring.

"Do not try and get up," she told him, even as his feet found the floor. "I will bring your supper to you."

"I've been too long abed."

 _There_ was the argument Dany had anticipated, and it was almost a relief to hear him sounding so like himself again, stubborn and proud. Though not so proud, she noted, as to protest when she went to him and slipped an arm about his waist to help him over to the table, as he discovered his limbs weak from disuse, as well as not yet accustomed to the motion of the ship.

"How long has it been?" he asked, sinking heavily onto the velvet padded bench; theirs was the captain's cabin, fitted out luxuriously to suit Xaro should chance find him aboard the vessel, which he had re-christened _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_. Jorah reached for the half loaf of bread and tore off a chunk.

"We are a fortnight out from Qarth."

The polished mahogany table was small, and Dany stood close beside him as she sliced meat and cheese for him, her gown brushing his leg. Jorah looked up at her as he chewed, and to her relief the color seemed already to be returning to his face, his eyes not so bright with pain.

"I tarried but two days after you went into the House of the Undying, while the maester kept close watch on you."

"What malady did he say afflicted me?"

"Quaithe said that because you went into the House of the Undying without first drinking shade of the evening, you were unable to distinguish truth from lies."

"Then the visions were, indeed, lies? Quaithe said I would see truths of the past and future."

Dany wondered again what it was he'd seen that he so desperately hoped it wasn't true. She hesitated a moment before telling him what the priestess had told her.

"They were not _your_ truths. Not in that time or place. Which, I suppose, makes them lies."

With a snort, Jorah reached for the decanter of wine that stood in the middle of the table. Pouring himself a cup, he muttered, "Priestess gibberish."

Dany nodded and smiled as she set a plate of salt pork and cheese before him, but moisture on her cheeks belied her.

"Daenerys...."

Jorah sloshed his wine as he set his cup down too hard on the table, and reached up to cradle her face in his big hand. She covered it with her own, pressing it against her cheek as his callused thumb scuffed her tear damped skin.

"Whatever it was that ailed me, my queen, I am well now."

"I didn't know if you would be."

The words, which had been all bound up inside her for weeks now, spilled out like blood and pus from an infected wound that had scabbed over without truly healing, along with the tears that would not stay back no matter how hard she blinked against them. When Jorah's other arm went around her waist, she allowed him to pull her onto his lap, and she put her arms about his neck, clinging to him, drawing from his strength even though he likely had little to give her.

"When you entered the room with the crows," she said through her tears, "your mind became a maze. You had to find your way out. I wanted to help you, but I didn't know how I could, except to take you home. Or toward it."

"And so you convinced Daxos to give you a ship?" Jorah scrutinized her face. "If you didn't marry him, I can think of but one thing that would spark such generosity from a merchant prince."

"I sold him an egg," Dany confessed, and Jorah gazed upon her with such intensity that after a moment she felt heat creep up her neck, and she was too warm from such close contact with him.

Luckily, at that moment, Rhaego awoke, so she slipped off Jorah's lap to tend her son as the knight finished eating. Before she put the babe to her breast, however, she carried him over to Jorah.

"Look who's awake, sweetling," she crooned.

Rhaego reached out for Jorah's nose as he let out a shriek of pure delight. "Da!"

Jorah darted a glance up at Dany, her heart suspended in her chest as his mouth hung agape.

"It's his most recent babbling," she explained when her ability to speak--though not steadily--returned to her. "He says _da_ when he sees his toys, or the seagulls, or his nurse, or me."

"Of course," Jorah said, smiling, though Dany thought it did not quite reach his eyes, where a moment ago he had looked not unpleasantly surprised that Rhaego should address him as his father.

"He's certainly happy to see you," she said, quickly, hoping to assuage the wound she had not meant to give him. "Tell Ser Jorah how you missed him while he was ill, Rhaego."

Jorah's smile widened as the child jabbered at him unintelligibly, including a few more _da_ s for good measure, even when Rhaego's pincer-like fingers found their way inside his nose and clawed at him.

"I'm pleased to see you, too, my prince," Jorah said, gently tweaking Rhaego's little button nose back, which made the child laugh his raspy infant chuckle. "I hope you took good care of your mama the queen while I was unable to fulfill my knightly duties."

"Xaro _was_ generous," Dany resumed their earlier conversation as she seated herself across the table from Jorah to nurse. "He paid me for the egg Pyat Pree took from me, as well. Or rather, he called it a loan, which I can repay from the royal treasury of Westeros when I am queen."

Jorah's gaze drifted to the cabin's windows, through which the light filtered greenly. "And so we sail… bound for where? Pentos?"

That was Dany's plan, for lack of a better one. "I know you think it folly, but I had to set a course for our voyage. We wouldn't have to stay with Illyrio, you know. I have money now, and Drogo had a manse in the city, if you remember. We might live there, if that is more desirable to you."

She could see from the twist of his mouth that it was _not_. Having no wish to quarrel with him now, she side-stepped the subject.

"Quaithe wanted us to go East--she said that in Asshai she could undo the curse, as well as help me to 'open the womb of the Mother of Dragons.'"

Jorah raised his eyebrows as he swallowed his wine. "I take it she had some plan for your third egg?"

Dany cradled Rhaego more closely against her as he suckled, his violet eyes gazing intently up at her. So much trust. She hoped that one day, her people would look at her thus.

"I never considered going with her," Dany replied in a low tone. "I have a child of flesh, who keeps my hands full. I've had quite enough of dragon's eggs. Look what they almost cost me."

As she spoke the last words, her gaze drifted up to seek Jorah's face. She almost could not bear to meet his eyes when she remembered the stricken look on his face when she'd said she would send him to his death before she would pay Pree's ransom. Never had she been more ashamed of anything than of doing such dishonor to him who had served her, protected her… _loved her_.

But look she did, for she would have him see the truth that had been revealed to her while he was within the House of the Undying:

That no cost was too great for her Ser Jorah.


	17. The Hand of the Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jorah reveals the truths of the House of the Undying, Dany reveals the truths of her heart.

Strengthened by his simple repast, Jorah made himself comfortable on the floor to wear Rhaego out with play before he was put in his cradle for the night. Jorah was amazed at how much the boy had changed in a fortnight; Rhaego chattered in a string of incomprehensible syllables he had not produced before Jorah went into the House of the Undying, and scooted himself proficiently across the floor--or, rolled to his desired destination. When Dany had nursed him for the last time until morning, they left Rhaego in the care of the nurse Xaro Xhoan Daxos had sent with them along with the ship and her crew, and made their way above deck. Jorah was desirous of fresh air and the opportunity to stretch his big frame to full height, which their cabin, however luxuriously it had been fitted out for Daxos' use, made impossible.

The deck was quiet, most of the crew having bedded down for the night, which allowed him and Dany to enjoy relative privacy as they strolled the length of the ship, her arm tucked through his, their bodies pressed intimately close. In truth, he was also relieved for the lack of men about to see him move so slowly and lean slightly on his lady as his legs became re-accustomed to bearing his weight after so long spent recumbent, with the additional difficulty of adjusting to the motion of the ship.

Jorah drank in the sea air as he had gulped from the waterskin upon awakening, not only because he had been so long deprived of the breeze as he lay belowdecks, but because the salty tang of it reminded him of home. Though the wind lacked the frigid nip of his beloved northern island and the distinct aroma of pines, Bear Island felt nearer than it had in ages. The _khalasar_ had reeked with the shit of Khal Drogo's forty thousand horses, the Red Waste like stagnant, sulfuric pools and decay, the city of Qarth like suspicion and betrayal, and the House of the Undying like carrion. Here, it was easy enough to lean against the ship's railing and imagine that he stood atop one of the watchtowers of his keep, looking up through the steepled canopy of ancient pines at the clear, starry sky.

Directly overhead, the red comet still burned, though not quite as brightly as when it appeared six moons ago. Though it ran contrary to Jorah's nature, perhaps because of his recent brush with the supernatural, he was inclined to wonder what this might signify. Had the comet simply lived out its life? He thought how Quaithe had followed the _shierak qiya_ , the bleeding star, to Dany, and named her Mother of Dragons. If the comet were, indeed, an omen pertaining to Dany, did it not stand that it might have waned when she parted with her dragon's eggs?

Jorah shook his head. No, this was ridiculous. If anything, the comet ought to reflect Dany's reunion with her child; it had, after all, appeared in the sky the night of Rhaego's birth. Waning might mean anything--or nothing. Which was why Jorah paid no heed to the heavens when seeking his own life's course. Quaithe, behind her mask, was a madwoman, obsessed with gods and powers that did not exist, Pyat Pree and his warlock ilk a brotherhood of tricksters and charlatans who had found out Jorah's life story, much as Daxos had, and used their "art" to drive him near mad with fright.

At his side, Dany's soft voice broke into his thoughts, addressing them as if he'd spoken them aloud. "What did you see in the House of the Undying? Why did you enter the room with the crows?"

Jorah looked down at the railing and noticed he gripped it so hard his knuckles had turned white. He also saw that Dany's hand still rested in the crook of his elbow, her fingers so small and delicate against his broad muscled forearm, her touch so light and so comforting. She coaxed him to relax his hold on the rail, and he loosed words that had knotted in his throat.

"Because I saw my father dying."

And he told her his vision of the crude hall where the great old bear lay bleeding from his belly on the floor of mud or shit, while the crows plucked out his entrails and eyes and sang that song, revealed his fear that it meant his lord father had been--or would be--slain by his own brothers in black.

"Oh, my sweet Ser Jorah," Dany cried, her hand sliding down his forearm to take his hand. "What a terrible thing to see, and think. But perhaps it was not--or will not be--true."

Touched by her compassion, Jorah brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it. "Ordinarily I would disregard such a thing, but some of what I saw certainly was, true. I also saw my lady wife, Elianor, on her death bed…The men I sold into slavery…"

He did not speak to her of the other vision, in which his father had given Longclaw-- _his_ sword, which Ned Stark had driven him to abandon--to one of the men of the Night's Watch; he shoved aside the terrible thought that the ancestral blade of House Mormont had been-- or would be--the one to bring down the Old Bear.

"And some of what I saw I hope may be true." Jorah hesitated for a moment, unsure whether it would be overstepping to tell her what was on his mind. But then he remembered the words she'd spoken earlier of his increased worth in her eyes, so he forged ahead. "I had one vision of Rhaego. A man grown, a warrior the likes of whom I have never seen, astride a three-headed dragon--with the body of a bear."

Dany turned to face him fully, looking up at him with eyes as silver as her hair in the moonlight. "I have dreamed this thing, too."

Jorah had a feeling he ought to be more surprised by this--and skeptical--than he was. Instead, he found himself carried away by the hope that would not be kept down, no matter how many obstacles had come between them. He held both of Dany's hands, drawing her close enough that he could feel her warmth radiating through the thin layers of their clothing; before coming out, he had thrown on a pair of breeches with his linen shirt, which billowed in the breeze, and Dany wore a silken gown which he had not seen before, which she must have brought from Daxos, though it was not--thankfully, or not, Jorah could not decide--cut in the breast-baring fashion of Qarth.

"What do you think it means, Daenerys?"

"I know naught of dreams," she replied, "but ask me of my heart, and of that I will most gladly speak."

 _His_ heart pounded as he asked, "And what would you tell me?"

Dany rose up on her toes, and Jorah bent to feel the brush of her whisper on his ear. "The words you would most like to hear me speak."

His eyes closed of their own accord, and he grazed his lips along the shell of _her_ ear as he nuzzled her temple. _Finally_ , the moment he'd dreamed of, which he'd thought, since the morning his request that she love him rather than pleasure him had been met with rejection, would never be any more than that. Nevertheless, he found could not give himself entirely over to it until he had it from her in no uncertain terms.

He drew back from her, just enough that he could peer into her eyes. "Not merely because I want to hear them?"

"Because I mean them."

And Dany murmured the longed-for words against his mouth as he touched his lips to hers.

No words, no kiss, no lady, had ever been sweeter to him.

She opened her mouth eagerly to his tongue, making a little sigh of pleasure as he deepened the kiss which in turn made him press her back against the railing of the ship, the nearer to get himself to her. The difference in their heights made it difficult to get as close as he wanted to be--as close as she seemed to want to be, too, if the way she clung to his neck was any indication--so he reached one hand beneath her arse, squeezing it as he lifted her up to him with his other arm wrapped firmly around her waist. _He_ groaned as she obligingly wrapped her legs about his waist, his breeches growing almost uncomfortably taut as he rubbed against the mound between her legs. Dany liked that, too; her tongue, which had been tracing the edge of Jorah's upper lip as if she were drawing it on paper, plunged deeper into his mouth, gliding slowly along his tongue, creating a slight friction that made him unable to think of anything but of feeling other parts of himself buried in her warmth, her muscles contracting around him.

By now he had Dany more or less sitting on the edge of the ship, her back against the rail, so he released her waist and reached back to trail his hand down along one slender leg until he found the hem of her gown. He pushed it up and slipped his hand inside the flowing garment, running his hand back up again over the curve of her knee to caress her thigh. Dany gasped and shuddered at his touch, and Jorah chuckled low at the discovery of her ticklish spots. Briefly, she touched her lips back to his, but then her head fell back, inviting him to trail kisses along the line of her jaw and down her neck. As his fingers continued their delicate course toward the innermost part of her thigh, his tongue darted out to taste the hollow of her throat, and he relished the flavor of sea mingled with a dusky perfume that reminded him of Daxos' palace in Qarth and the intimate moments they'd shared in the big featherbed as part of their act as husband and wife.

Neither was pretending now, though. Pinning her against the rail with his body, Jorah's other hand left her arse to cover her breast. Her nipple hardened even before the pad of his thumb touched it, but a layer of silk separated his callused fingertip from the velvety brownish-pink skin. Inwardly he cursed it for not being one of her more revealing Qartheen gowns, but that was easily remedied, he thought, and he pushed the strap of the dress down over her shoulder, nipping lightly at the expanse of skin he revealed; it pimpled with gooseflesh, either from the breeze or in reaction to his touch, and Jorah warmed it with his lips and tongue. At the same moment, the fingers of his other hand arrived at the place between her thighs. She wore no smallclothes, having gotten used to going without, Dothraki fashion, and the wiry hairs that grew over her mound tickled the backs of his knuckles as he slipped his fingers inside her. So warm, she was, and so wet.

Dany went rigid against him, and her hand clamped down over his through her skirt, stilling his fingers within her folds. Jorah's face reddened, hotter and deeper than the flush of passion that had come over him, as he looked up at her in alarm.

She loved him--she'd said so. He'd never dreamed that after that she would _still_ reject--

She pressed her lips to his forehead, and drew back. Jorah saw that her breasts heaved with her quick, shallow breaths. But she smiled shyly, tucking an errant lock of hair that had swept loose from her braid behind her ear.

"I would have you properly, ser," she said.

Jorah let out a ragged laugh of relief. _Of course_ she wasn't rejecting him; her mutual desire had been evident in her own eager bestowal of affection, and now remained evident in her dilated eyes. It was understandable that she didn't want him to take her quickly, out here, as if she were some wench he were fucking in haste against a tavern wall, and that wasn't what he wanted, either. He wanted to worship Dany as the queen she was, to pour into her all the love he had carried for her in his heart all these long months…near to a year now.

And he wanted to show her what she'd likely never experienced with her husband. Though Jorah did not deny that she'd come to love her _khal_ , he'd seen the Dothraki mount their women, had in fact witnessed Drogo take Dany before all the _khalasar_ after she'd eaten the heart and bathed in the Womb of the World, spilling himself into her with just a few brief thrusts. There could be little pleasure in that for a slip of a girl like Dany.

Aroused anew at the thought of slowly, tenderly making love to Dany, teaching her what exquisite delights she could know in the arms of a considerate lover, he withdrew his hand from her skirt, and wrapped his arms about her waist to lower her down from the railing.

When he felt her feet touch the deck, he asked, "Shall we go relieve the nurse from her watch in our cabin?"

Dany's gaze dropped, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. "I mean--first I would have you for my husband."

Jorah released his breath and willed his disappointment away. Daenerys Targaryen wanted to marry him, by the seven gods; that had been his wish since before she was widowed, when he had looked upon her at the side of Khal Drogo and coveted the most fearsome Dothraki horselord's wife.

Why, then, did he sound bitter when he said, "Wedded, _then_ bedded?"

She looked up at him, he smile restrained, apologetic, though her eyes radiated joy. "As soon we get to Pentos--"

"I don't think you can appreciate how long I've waited for you, Daenerys," said Jorah, taking her by the arms; one shoulder was still bared where he had pulled down the sleeve of her gown in their passion, revealing the swell of her breast. "I implore you, _please_ do not ask me to wait until we reach Pentos."

Though he was mostly prompted by passion, it dawned on him that Dany had unwittingly played into his hand. Since she told him their ship was bound for the house of her old friend Illyrio Mopatis--or, worse, her husband's house as she'd suggested as an alternative--Jorah had resolved that he would do what he could do dissuade her along the way. Their impending marriage, and his wish to make her his wife as soon as possible, would provide him with the perfect excuse to tarry. And if Dany would not be moved…Well then, he would at least secure his place at her side before he risked her finding out about his stint as King Robert's spy.

Fortunately, she took this request in the way in which he'd hoped, as a sign of his ardent love and desire for her.

"Very well then," she said, stretching up on her toes to kiss him. "On our first landing, I shall make you my consort."

Jorah smiled, though apparently not to Dany's liking. She drew back from him, studying him beneath an arched eyebrow.

"You do not look as happy about that as I thought you would."

"Will you allow me a _little_ pride, and permit me to ask for your hand as a man does? Even if I am just a lowly knight and you my queen?"

Dany's expression softened, apparently pleased by his request. "Not a knight for very much longer," she said, lacing her fingers through his. "And never lowly, first of my knights. But yes."

And, painfully aware of the irony of having to beg permission to ask for the hand of the woman to whom he was willing enough to submit to as his queen, but absolutely not in marriage, he knelt down before her on the deck of the ship, her gown billowing around him in the sea breeze.

"Daenerys, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, will you consent to join House Targaryen with House Mormont, and be my beloved lady wife?"

"I do, Ser Jorah. It shall be my honor, and joy."

She certainly _looked_ joyful, Jorah thought as he peered up at her, and he fancied that such a young woman as she, whose first marriage had been so unconventional and arranged for her by a brother with no concern for her own happiness, might be well pleased to be given all the attentions a princess ought to have from a suitor this time. He started to kiss each of her knuckles lightly, in keeping with the courtly manner of his offer, but then Dany tugged at his hand and gave him such a lovely smile that he muttered _bugger that_ and rose, gathering her in his arms and kissing her soundly as he spun about with until they were both breathless and laughing giddily at the surprising but wonderful turn of events this night had brought.

Abruptly, he stopped, his mind fixing on a particular point of the conversation to which he'd not given due thought. _Not a knight for very much longer,_ she'd said. _I would make you my consort._ While he'd thought before how Dany, as heir of House Targaryen, would not take his name upon their marriage, it had not occurred to him that it would mean a change of address for him.

" _Prince_ Jorah, eh?" he tested the title.

Dany giggled against Jorah's shoulder, and he cringed.

"It sounds ridiculous," he said.

"It doesn't!"

"But you laugh."

"For happiness!"

Jorah held her slightly back, hands on his shoulders, and scrutinized her. "You lie."

"Perhaps," Dany admitted, her eyes shining. "Though I _am_ happy. And you, Jorah? Is the title a bargain breaker?"

He tightened his embrace around her, all thoughts fleeing but that the thing he'd prayed for had come to pass--apart from going home. But that, too, would come soon enough.

"People may call me whatever they bloody well please. All that matters to me is that I'm to wed Daenerys Targaryen."


	18. Two Houses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> House Targaryen and House Mormont are joined through the bonds of holy matrimony.

When Jorah saw Daenerys in her bride's gown, he was glad she'd insisted on doing things properly. If he'd had his way, he would have dragged her off _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ \--the ship's name being Xaro Xhoan Daxos' idea of a joke--as soon as she moored in the harbor of Valyria, and pulled the first septon he passed on the street aside to marry them. But Dany had proved immutable. She was the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, she'd said, and by the gods, she would be married like one.

Jorah could hardly fault her for that, particularly when her first wedding had been a savage affair to a young maiden's eyes, with fights to the death and men mounting their women in the sight of all in a pantomime of the night to come--though that hadn't stopped him from teasing her that they would not be _properly_ married in the Westerosi custom, since they had no court to put them to bed after the feast. Not that they had anyone to fest them, either, strangers as they were in the city which was, ironically, the Targaryen homeland.

"I don't know about you, ser," Dany had said over a bowl of fish stew in the dim corner of the Dragon's Nest--one of the few inns to be found Valyria, for travelers feared the Doom still ruled the island in the midst of the Smoking Sea, though in fact a hardy stock of people from neighboring regions, who had the blood of Dany's ancestors in their veins, had to an extent rebuilt and repopulated the city, in the hope of unearthing the lost treasures purported to be there, "but I look forward to a more _intimate_ wedding night this time. And is there anything you want to feast on but me?"

Her eyes had glittered up at him from beneath her lashes with a coy confidence Jorah would not have imagined she had in her when he'd met her as Khal Drogo's blushing bride. The images evoked by her bit of flirtation had made him want to sweep the bowls and utensils and tankards off the table and lay it instead with a nude and sprawling Dany and have his wedding feast then and there, the Others take privacy.

They had, to their great surprise, found a sept in Valyria, built by a band of stalwart believers who sought to spread the Faith of the Seven. Jorah had snorted when the innkeep told them of the septons and septas who sought to drive the demons back to the seven hells, but now, as Dany stood before him in the narthex wearing the gown which had delayed his gratification by nearly a week despite her having laid down an exorbitant amount of gold to the seamstresses to ensure its swift completion, he thanked the gods for their missionaries and that he'd submitted to his bride's wish for a traditional wedding. Though was most especially thankful that the celebrations would not be _so_ proper that he would have to sit through hours of feasting when his hunger was, indeed, only for her.

And that no man's hands but his would have the delightful task of removing the garment from his bride's body.

Made in the fashion of Westeros, the bride's gown was the most modest article of clothing in which he'd ever seen Dany clothed, revealing only a hint of the swell of her breasts above a panel of Myrish lace; yet to Jorah, she was more alluring than she'd been in any of the sheer, revealing silks she'd worn before adopting Dothraki garb, or even her breast-baring Qartheen dresses. It wasn't because she looked a woman grown in her gown--though she did appear older than her fifteen years, the cloth-of-silver, pale as the moon, accentuating the curves which childbearing had lent her slender frame as it clung to her waist like a second skin and then flared out from her hips; her abundant hair had been washed and brushed to a silvery-gold sheen and then part of it elaborately braided and twisted atop her head as befit a queen. She'd even had a crown made, a delicate circlet of three serpentine dragons, their lithe golden bodies entwined in an endless knot, little ruby eyes blinking in the candlelight to match the blood red dragon of House Targaryen that roared in the jet black sky of her maiden's cloak. She was not, technically, a maiden, but Khal Drogo had no colors and no cloak for her to wear--which rather pleased Jorah--and so she came to him bearing the sigil of her birthright.

"You study me most intently, ser," said Dany, and Jorah had not realized how loudly his heart had seemed to pound in his ears until her voice broke the silence. "Do you think my gown worth the wait? _You_ are very lordly in your wedding clothes."

He glanced down, askance, at his new raiment, the finest he had ever worn--a doublet of black velvet, slashed with dark green silk which complemented the green of his cloak, a forest of pines against which the black bear of House Mormont stood as fearsome as the Targaryen dragon--and then looked back up at his bride.

"You look…" _Beautiful_ his mind supplied, but his lips said, "…like _home_."

As soon as the words passed from his mouth, they sounded stupid to him, and Jorah again averted his gaze. But as Dany raised her arm and pressed her cool hand to his cheek, the fabric of the dagged sleeve which pooled with her train on the marble tiled floor whispered promises to him: that this woman who was the queen of his heart was also the true queen, who would be the fulfillment of _all_ his desires.

Though not a praying man, and though he'd committed unforgivable sins, Jorah had prayed for home, and the gods had sent _her_. He turned his head, his beard scratching faintly against her skin, and pressed a kiss to her palm. Then, straightening up, he extended his hand to his bride and nodded to the great doors to the sept, carved with the seven-pointed star and the visages of the gods.

"Shall we be married, my queen?"

Smiling, she placed her hand in his, and together they stepped through the doors of the sept.

As they made their way down the long aisle to the marriage altar, where the solemn septon awaited them between the gilded statues of the Father and the Mother which shone like glory in the light of dozens of flickering candles, Jorah noticed the rows of empty benches. Though he was selfishly glad to be spared the over-long festivities he would have had to endure were this the queen's wedding in Westeros, he wondered if Dany regretted that her wedding did not take place in the Great Sept of Baelor, its benches packed with her royal court and highborn subjects assembled in joy to see the Targaryen dynasty re-established. He looked down at her and saw that her smile had not wavered as she gazed steadily ahead, where their few witnesses assembled: Groleo, the captain of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ , who held the folded bride's cloak which Jorah would bestow upon Dany, and the nursemaid, whose arms were occupied with Prince Rhaego.

The babe squealed happily at the sight of them; pulling a slobbery fist from his mouth, he shouted, "Da!"

Though Jorah had observed the child babble _da_ to anything that pleased him--his mother, his toys, Jorah's boots when he crawled about the floor of their cabin, the seagulls--Dany looked up at him now, her eyes shining, and murmured, "He knows what today means for him."

Jorah had been so preoccupied with being Dany's husband that he'd all but forgotten that the wedding would also make him Rhaego's father. Stepfather, rather--though as none of the children he had with Dany would bear the name Mormont if she did rule the Seven Kingdoms as queen, Rhaego would not even have that to set him apart from Jorah's trueborn sons and daughters; it was easy enough to believe the babe was his own. And he had, after all, seen Rhaego slip from his mother's womb, which Khal Drogo never had done, though he had put his seed there.

But most importantly, Jorah Mormont would be the only father the future King of the Seven Kingdoms--the stallion who mounts the world-- ever knew. Certainly it was a privilege and a responsibility Jorah had never dreamed of. He wondered if _that_ would be enough for the Old Bear to consider honor restored.

If he lived to know of Jorah's marriage.

Before he could go too far down that dark path of thought, which had been close to Jorah's thoughts since he went in to the House of the Undying, the septon's upraised crystal caught Jorah's eye by refracting the light of the candles and redirected his attention to the marriage ceremony, which the septon had begun without preamble. Jorah scarcely heard the septon instruct him in the vows when he heard his own voice repeating them.

"In the name of the Father Above, I vow to love you with all due justice. In the name of the Mother Above, I vow to love you with all due mercy. In the name of the Warrior, I vow to love you with all my courage. In the name of the Maiden, I vow to love you with all my faithfulness. In the name of the Smith, I vow to love you with all my strength. In the name of the Crone, I vow to love you with all wisdom. In the name of the Stranger, I vow to love you unto death--long in coming may it be."

As Dany repeated the same vows, Jorah could not stop himself from thinking of the other bride who had sworn--and broken--them. He had, of course, wed Elianor Glover in accordance with the rites of the old gods of their northern homeland, but he and Lynesse had this same rite in the sept at Lannisport.

In truth, Jorah had not been blameless in his adherence to the vows, either; he certainly hadn't demonstrated the wisdom of the crone in bankrupting his house and dabbling in the slave trade in the desperate attempt to buy the love Lynesse had sworn to give him. But the lady certainly had displayed none herself, in allowing him to spend what he didn't have on what she did not need, and had indulged her own unhappiness without consideration of the situation in which she placed him, at the last rewarded him for it all by breaking the last of her vows and giving her love to another man. Indeed, her bridal promises had so easily fallen by the wayside that Jorah wondered whether Lynesse had ever truly loved him at all.

With Dany, however, there was no doubt in his mind that she loved him. True enough, she'd pulled him back and forth in indecision for many months, and even after she had spoken her love and promised herself to him, he'd been half-afraid that she would change her mind and find some reason not to go through with the marriage when they reached land.

But now he stood on the belief that they built their house on a firm foundation. This match had not been made in the heat of an impassioned moment, or entered into out of duty. They had been friends first, and they had been tried in the fire and not consumed. As the septon beseeched each of the Seven to bless the vows they had made, Jorah gazed down at Dany and thought that they needed no help from the gods to make as successful a marriage as any in Westeros--especially her monarchs.

His voice rang out strong and clear as he pronounced the seven promises of the bridegroom: "I will be the wine to quench your thirst and the bread to fill your hunger. I will shelter you in summer and be your warmth in winter. I will be the sword before you and the shield behind you. From this day I will no longer be fully mine own, but will be your other half."

And Dany, whose voice had trembled, barely audible, when she had made her vows to her first husband in broken Dothraki, now spoke steadily and without hesitation--as a queen--as she made Jorah the seven promises of the bride: "I will be the hearth that warms your bones and the bed where you lie down to rest them. I will be your shout of joy, and when you sorrow I will be your wail. I will be your impassioned kiss and your tender embrace. From this day I will no longer be fully mine own, but will be your other half."

From some cloister echoed a chorus of septas, their high, piping voices upraised in the wedding song:

  
 _Where justice is, the Father is there.  
The Father has judged us as one._

 _Where mercy is, the Mother is there.  
The Mother has joined us as one._

 _Where courage is, the Warrior is there.  
The Warrior has bound us as one._

 _Where faithfulness is, the Maiden is there.  
The Maiden shall keep us as one._

 _Where strength is, the Smith is there.  
The Smith has wrought us as one._

 _Where wisdom is, the Crone is there.  
The Crone has led us together as one._

 _Where death is, the Stranger is there.  
Till death takes us, long from now, we shall be as one._

After the last note of the hymn ceased to echo through the vaulted space, the septon presented the challenge to those in attendance whether they knew of any reason why the bride and groom should not be joined as man and wife--which seemed superfluous considering the few guests were the only people in the city who knew Jorah and Dany at all, and they not well. But it was tradition, and soon enough Jorah found himself turning to Groleo for Dany's bride's cloak.

He unfurled it, a magnificent garment of velvet, half black and half the same forest green as his own cloak, trimmed around the collar with black bear's fur and emblazoned with a red and black three-headed dragon with the body of a bear that he had seen in the House of the Undying and Dany in her dreams. At first Jorah had balked at the idea of Dany making this fantastic creature her coat of arms, but she had been adamant, and in the end he had relented, pleased that she wanted to depict her union with House Mormont though her royal status did not require her to do so.

"You may not be king," she'd told him, "but you shall be the father of kings, who shall be as much bear as they are dragon. All shall know who my consort is."

At this point in the ceremony, Dany's father, or her brother in his stead, should have removed the maiden's cloak from her shoulders, to signify the transfer of protection from the house of her birth to her husband's. Dany had neither father nor brother--which was just as well, Jorah thought, for it was almost hilarious to imagine the Mad King Aerys, or the Beggar King Viserys, or even noble Prince Rhaegar, giving Daenerys to such a lowly knight as Ser Jorah Mormont, Lord of Bear Island, even before his exile; he'd been flabbergasted enough that Lord Leyton Hightower had conceded to the match between himself and Lynesse. And Dany sought no man to stand as father or brother to give her in marriage.

"I am Queen of the Seven Kingdoms," she had said with a defiant toss of her hair. "I made this match for myself, and I will give myself in marriage."

Jorah's chest swelled as he watched her slender fingers unfasten her cloak pin--the onyx bear he had impulsively bought her in Qarth, exactly the sort of sweetly sentimental gesture he would expect from Dany, though it surprised him nonetheless--he rather liked the idea of Dany coming to him of her own volition, because she desired this marriage…desired _him_. Elianor had wed him because her father and his bid it, and Lynesse…Jorah never had been certain why Lynesse married him, except that she had been young and swept away by the romance and chivalry of being named queen of love and beauty by a knight half-drunk on victory and wine, and neither marriage had been happy or a success. He had to believe that this time would be different.

The cloak of House Targaryen slid down Dany's shoulders and pooled on the floor at her feet with the train of her gown. Jorah scarcely breathed as he moved to stand behind her. She was so small compared to him, but he had no illusions as to her strength as he draped the new cloak of his protection over her narrow shoulders. He had protected her already--he'd stopped an assassin, slain two Dothraki warriors to help her escape the _khalasar_ , kept her alive in the Red Waste, and braved the nightmarish House of the Undying to rescue her son; until she sat, crowned, upon the Iron Throne, she would need him, and even then no knight of her Queensguard would guard her more closely, or lay down his life more willingly, than he.

But if Dany had only required a bodyguard, she would not have given him her hand--nor would Jorah have sought it. She wanted an entirely different sort of protection from Jorah, and that was what he gave today as he draped her in the colors of their united houses. Carefully, he drew the section of her hair that flowed freely out from the fur collar of the cloak so that it cascaded down her back; as he reached around her to pin the new cloak with the bear brooch, he leaned in and pressed his lips gently against her cheek, smiling as she tilted her head slightly, shivering against him.

Then, he stepped around to stand before her, taking her small hands in his and drawing them up to his heart that she might feel its pounding as he said, "With this kiss I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife."

"With this kiss," Dany replied, beaming bright as the moon--not the moon-of-Drogo's-life, but more like the moon in the stories which hatched the first dragons--"I pledge my love, and take you for my lord and husband."

Before Jorah could lean down to her, Queen Daenerys cupped her hands around his neck and rose up on her toes for a kiss, making him her prince as the septon cast a thousand rainbows of light upon them with his crystal and proclaimed that in the sight of gods and men, Jorah of House Mormont and Daenerys of House Targaryen were one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.

And cursed be the one who came between them.


	19. Going Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bear and the dragon consummate their union.

"Is this your doing?" Dany looked back over her shoulder at Jorah, who stood in the open doorway of the Dragon's Nest, gawking at the festive scene in the inn.

With a shake of his head, he replied, "You're the one who convinced me that the only feast I wanted was the one to take place in our bedchamber. It wasn't you?"

"I'd convinced myself of the same."

She turned again to take in the room, which had been in usual order when they'd left the inn that morning to be married; now, upon returning from the sept with the intent of starting their wedding night rather earlier in the day--before Rhaego demanded that his new stepfather give him a turn with his mother's breasts-- they found the place rearranged to accommodate a feast. The tables were pushed to line the perimeter of the room, the benches filled with men and women who greeted Dany and Jorah with bemused faces but enthusiastic crashing down of tankards upon the tables and feet stamping on the floorboards and whistles and shouts of congratulations to the newlyweds. At the head of the arrangement stood an empty table atop a platform that looked as though it had been hastily constructed, draped with cloth of green, black, and red. By Dany's reckoning, the center of the room seemed to have been cleared away for dancing; in the corner by the hearth sat a quartet of musicians, a harper, a lutist, a piper, and a lad with a small drum and a tambourine.

"Come in, m'lord and lady of Westeros!" called the innkeep, a red-faced man who rather resembled the hens flapping about the inn-yard as he beckoned to them from behind the high table. "It's not a wedding feast without the bride and groom!"

As Dany obeyed, a little dazed, she overheard Jorah ask Groleo whether _he_ was responsible for this spectacle.

The captain grinned hugely, revealing gold-capped teeth, but denied it. "What? And have to pay for all this, my prince?"

Jorah attempted a scowl at the new title he found so ill-suited to him, but his eyes, twinkling and crisscrossed at the corners with smile lines as he handed Dany up onto the makeshift dais, belied his happiness.

"You needn't have gone to all this trouble, good sir," said Dany to the innkeep.

The ruddy color in his cheeks deepened and he bobbed his head in deference. "Couldn't let a great lord and lady pass their wedding night under my roof without a proper feast."

When he'd scuttled off, Jorah leaned close to Dany as he seated her and said in a low tone, his breath tickling her cheek, "More likely he couldn't let an opportunity slip by to wring more coin from a great lord and lady's purse for passing their wedding night under his roof. If food and drink for all these people turn up on our bill--"

"It will be less of a drain on my coffers than a wedding feast in the Red Keep."

Laughter rumbled out of Jorah's chest as he took his seat beside her, and Dany thought what a rich sound it was, and how seldom she'd had occasion to hear it. True enough, they'd been thrust from one dire situation to another for most of the time she'd known him. It made her wonder if he wasn't right after all--though not for the reasons he gave her--that they ought to put off their impending voyage to Pentos rather than set sail on the morrow, as she wanted, and enjoy a season of laughter before her conquest necessitated the grim air to which her husband was more accustomed.

 _Husband_. Jorah Mormont was her husband. That was why he was so happy. And Dany had never felt happier than to have made him so.

Jorah was still chuckling as a barmaid filled their goblets, and when she had gone, he turned to Dany with eyes twinkling with merriment. _Twinkling_. Jorah. And he hadn't yet drunk a drop of wine.

"Do you think our friend the innkeep will lay out seventy courses for us, as when Robert Baratheon wed Cersei Lannister?"

" _Seventy_!"

"Aye." Jorah sipped his wine. "You might just as aptly call him the Glutton as the Usurper."

For the first time, Dany found Robert revolting for reasons other than slaying her brother. But she didn't want to think of him for _any_ reason. Not on her wedding day.

Taking a swallow of wine, she asked, "Were you there?"

"No. As bannermen to House Stark, the Mormonts fought for Robert. But no amount of loyalty and valor brought us high enough to be invited to a royal wedding feast."

"It has now." Dany raised her cup. "To Prince Jorah of House Mormont, and the first of many royal feasts!"

"And to Queen Daenerys, never calling me _prince_ again."

"Or what?" Dany's shoulder brushed his, and their fingers entwined beneath the table as she leaned close to him. "You'll have my tongue?"

Jorah's gaze flickered to her lips, the corner of his own quirking flirtatiously upward. "One way or another."

He kissed her, but their tongues only met briefly before he broke away, laughing, to the catcalls of the other patrons.

"I'd best have a care," he said, "or we're likely to get a bedding, after all."

"Time a-plenty for kissing later!" said the innkeep, following on the heels of two serving boys who marched up to them, bearing platters of fish and poultry. "Eat up, m'lord, m'lady--you'll be wanting the fuel."

Despite what she'd said about only wanting a feast of love, Dany found she _was_ hungry.

Noticing how heartily she ate, Jorah teased, "Do seventy courses seem less gluttonous now?"

"I was too much aflutter to break my fast this morning." She swallowed a bite of tender duck roasted with lemon and honey--the choicest cuts of the bird, which Jorah had served her from his own place, a Westerosi custom, he'd told her, and one which she found particularly charming.

"Aflutter?"

"With excitement."

Dany had not eaten the morning she'd wed Drogo, either, nor swallowed a morsel at the feast that followed the brief Dothraki ceremony. Only then her loss of appetite had been because she was so terrified of her groom and her wedding guests that she was sure her stomach would revolt against anything she put in it.

Jorah nodded to her plate. "Are you not excited for what's yet to come?"

His smile did not quite reach his eyes now, but that didn't stop Dany from accepting another sliver of duck from him, sucking the juices off her fingers as she slowly withdrew them from her mouth, holding Jorah's gaze all the while.

"As the innkeep said, I'll be in want of fuel."

She gestured to _his_ plate, from which he'd eaten little--a surprise considering he'd always seemed to enjoy food even when faced with some of the stranger delicacies served at Dothraki feasts, and in Xaro Xhoan Daxos' palace. Perhaps _he_ was nervous about what awaited them in their chamber upstairs. It was an endearing thought, and made her shift in her chair to sit closer to him; she missed the intimate piles of cushions on the floor to which she'd grown accustomed in the _khalasar_ and in Qarth.

"Do you think my court would mind very much if I dispense with tables and chairs in the Red Keep?" she mused aloud, and burst out giggling at the confusion that furrowed Jorah's brow.

"Perhaps you've had too much to drink?" he said, nudging their shared goblet--another Westerosi tradition--out of her reach.

Her explanation was interrupted by the innkeep coming up behind them as the musicians struck up a tune, urging them to lead the way in a dance. Dany leapt to her feet at once, but Jorah looked up at her dubiously from his chair.

"You'd be better partnered with a dancing bear. We had few occasions for dancing on Bear Island. Even when--"

 _Even when Lynesse was Lady Mormont_ , Dany completed the sentence in her mind. She wanted to think of Jorah's wife on her wedding day perhaps less than she wanted to think of the Usurper. She fixed a smile on her lips and tugged at his hand, pulling him reluctantly to his feet.

"Do you think Viserys gave me dancing lessons as he begged his way across the Free Cities? Come, husband. We shall both step on each other's toes and appear clumsy bears--I am, after all, a she-bear now, am I not?"

"That you are!" Jorah laughed as he swept her across the floor to the musicians' rollicking tune.

Dany did not feel precisely light on her feet--especially not when Jorah stepped on them, though he danced better than he'd led her to believe--but she was undoubtedly the lightest of heart she had ever been. The music was new to her, yet it seemed somehow more familiar than any she had heard during her travels through the Free Cities, as if the beat of it pumped the very blood through her veins, and she gave herself over to it.

"My cousin Dacey always loved to dance," Jorah said between tunes, as they lined up for another dance. "Somehow she never looked the fool, though she's near as tall as me and towered over most of the young men who partnered with her."

"I shall be sure to call her to court, so that I may meet her and give her occasion to dance."

This appeared to please Jorah very much, and as Dany spun away from him to pluck Rhaego from his nurse's arms where she stood bouncing him on her hip at the edge of the circle of dancers, she reflected how she'd begun to speak of all her plans as _when_ , not _if_. Naught about her situation had changed; indeed, Jorah brought nothing to their marriage to make her ascension to the Iron Throne a likelihood--not like Drogo and his cavalry. But it counted for much that _he_ had been the one who'd kept her alive so many times when she ought to have been dead.

And Jorah was the nearest thing she'd ever had to home. From the books he'd given her for a bride's gift, to his own tales of their homeland, told with such love and longing, to their shared confession that Westeros was the object of their prayers, he alone understood how desperate she was a place to call her own. Whenever they spoke about the Seven Kingdoms, she felt as though she had not only been born there, but had lived there, and loved those lands of dappled fields and snowy forests as he did.

Suddenly, a jolt of yearning surged through her. She was partnered with Groleo while Jorah danced with Rhaego's nurse as the child tormented a longsuffering hound under one of the tables, but Dany begged the captain to excuse her wound her way through the dancers to find her husband. He seemed to have sensed her approach, for his eyes locked with hers the instant she stepped from behind a pair of dancers of such a height that she thought she must have strayed somehow into the log hall of House Mormont and found Jorah's cousins. The nurse disengaged herself from his arms, bobbing a little curtsey before she scurried off to collect her small charge, and Dany happily took her place, though her feet did not fall into the steps of the dance. Instead, she touched Jorah's cheek, drawing his face down for a kiss.

His lips moved but lightly over hers, his eyes open in question. Dany smiled her answer as she drew back, wrapped both her hands around his large one, and pulled him toward the staircase. The dancing and feasting stopped as the other patrons of the tavern took note of the couple's obvious departure; they were accompanied upstairs by the shouting of bawdies, but fortunately not by anyone keen to help the bride and groom off with their wedding clothes--though Jorah neatly circumvented any chance of that happening by calling out for a round of the innkeep's best ale for everyone.

Someone had paid a visit to their bedchamber, however, they discovered when Jorah swept her into his arms and shouldered through the door. The room was all softly glowing with candles, a carpet of sweetly fragrant flower petals leading to the silk canopied bed, where the counterpane had been invitingly turned down.

"Oh!" cried Dany, a glimmer at the foot of the bed catching her eye as Jorah set her on her feet. "I nearly forgot your wedding present."

"Making me your consort is not gift enough?" His teasing smile vanished as she presented him with a long, sheathed dagger; his eyes darted down to it, then back up to her, then down again. "Daenarys, this..."

Delicately, he traced his forefinger along the intricate gold scrollwork of the scabbard, which formed the entwined necks of dragons. His lips curved faintly upward, only for his smile to drop into an o of surprise. His gaze sought hers again.

"Is this...??"

"Dragonglass."

The gift pleased him, that was obvious from the way he almost fondled the flat of the flat of the blade. Yet she thought his high cheekbones had reddened, faintly. Or was it a trick of the uncertain candlelight?

"You gave me your bear to wear," she said, as if her gift were a trifling thing. "I thought you should have my dragon at your hip."

"A trinket purchased from an artisan on a wharf hardly compares to dragonglass. You should not have--"

"A dragonglass dagger _is_ a trinket compared to the gift the Queen of Westeros should have made to her groom. Someday it shall be a Valyrian blade, I swear it."

A knot rolled down Jorah's throat as he swallowed, and as he slipped the dagger back into its scabbard, he said, very quietly, "I had a Valyrian sword. Once."

He had told her about the sword the lords of Bear Island had wielded for five hundred years, which he'd left behind in his hall when he fled Westeros in disgrace. He had also told her how, in the House of the Undying, he'd had a vision of his father, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, giving the blade to a young black brother who looked like Eddard Stark, the very man who had stripped Jorah of his title and his lands and condemned him to death--which, in fairness, _was_ the penalty for Jorah's crime in the Seven Kingdoms. But she was not unmoved by her husband's grief, if his remorse was absent, and she covered his white-knuckled hands which gripped the dagger with her own.

"Someday you shall wield Longclaw again. I will get it back for you. Until then…"

Jorah brought their joined hands to his lips. "I shall cherish this dagger near as much as my lady wife who gave it to me."

"I'd tell you to put it on," said Dany, as he placed it upon a chest where some of his other weapons lay, "but did we not come up here to _un_ dress?"

As she spoke, she reached out to unbuckle Jorah's sword belt, and she felt him draw in his breath, as if surprised by her forwardness. Had he expected her to be as nervous about this wedding night as she had been about her first time with Drogo? Quickly, she looked up at her new husband to push the image of Drogo from her mind, which was accomplished easily enough when she saw the slight flare of Jorah's nostrils and the darkening of his eyes in desire. And yet his hand was gentle at the small of her back, pulling her so that her breasts just brushed against his chest as he bent his head to capture her lips in a kiss that was at first sweet, but then grew so insistent that sword and belt clattered to the floor as her insides quaked and her fingers slackened when she opened her mouth to his tongue.

She couldn't have said how long she stood there, aware of nothing but the warm sweetness of his mouth on hers and the strength of his arms about her. Eventually she felt his fingers tug at the laces of her gown at the small of her back. The bodice had loosened about her ribcage but the slightest bit when he hesitated, breaking the kiss to meet her gaze, silently asking permission to proceed.

Dany answered with an eager nod, and leaned up to resume their kiss, but Jorah withheld his lips as he unlaced her. The silk parted slowly over her back, and as he worked she could feel enough of his warmth through her thin linen shift that she became impatient with the barriers between them. The instant he pulled the cord free, she moved to strip off the gown, but Jorah caught her hands.

"Please, Dany," he murmured. "Allow me?"

Unable to say no to a request uttered so sweetly and with such longing, she submitted to her husband's deliberate ministrations, and found herself enjoying the way he first bared one shoulder, little by little, trailing soft kisses and scratchy beard over each newly revealed bit of skin, and then the other the same way, before he finally let the gown slide down her body with a whisper of cloth-of-silver. He took her hands and helped her step out from the voluminous folds, and his eyes swept over her in her thin shift of fine linen.

This was not at all how it had been when Drogo removed her dress on _their_ wedding night, Dany reflected; then she had covered her bare breasts with her hands and said _no_. Now, she wanted very much to be naked. It wasn't as if Jorah hasn't seen her thus, when she'd given birth, when she nursed Rhaego, when they shared a bed in Qarth and in their cabin onboard _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_. Impatience reared up again like an unbroken stallion, and she grasped the skirt of the shift to pull it up over her head.

Again, Jorah stopped her with a kiss, his fingers weaving their way into her hair to let it down from her elaborate coif. With a sigh--though she knew she would be more comfortable if her hair flowed freely instead of being pinned and twisted high and tight on the top of her head; her scalp _did_ ache, she noticed--she busied herself with undressing Jorah as he worked out the mysteries wrought by her Valyrian hairdresser. Only when she'd gotten him down to his shirt and breeches did he abandon her hair to remove her shift, so that _at last_ she stood nude before him--but for a pair beaded silk slippers on her feet.

"My slippers," she murmured, but she didn't think he heard her as he caught her in an almost fierce embrace and kissed her lips hungrily, backing her against the bed. His hands swept down over her back, leaving gooseprickles in the wake of his warm skin, finally cupping her arse to lift her up onto the edge of the mattress. Just as he'd nearly made her forget that she felt foolish being naked in her slippers, he broke the kiss to draw up her legs so he could slip them off her feet.

"Isn't there a fairy story about this?" he asked, smiling.

Dany knew just the one to which he referred, thanks to the books he'd given her. "The prince puts slippers _on_ the maid to claim her for his princess."

"I prefer this version. Especially the part where the princess is naked."

" _Queen_."

Dany thought of the atmosphere within her _khaleesi_ 's tent when Drogo spent nights there with her. Even when she'd passed the point time when intimacy had been painful to her and she'd enjoyed the act of love, they'd never bantered as she did now with Jorah; moons had waxed and waned before she and Drogo learned enough of each other's languages to speak more than a few stilted words or phrases to each other; and Drogo had not become _khal_ of one hundred thousand Dothraki because of his prowess as a conversationalist. Especially not in bed.

Though this talk with Jorah was playful, it lent an intimacy that went far beyond anything she had experienced in her first marriage, and made her desire her new husband in a way she'd never known was possible. How naïve she'd been, to have ever thought she couldn't want Jorah the way a woman wanted a man, simply because he wasn't as young or handsome as any suitor she'd imagined for herself. And if knowledge lent comeliness, then he was more fair to her than any man, for she knew him best of anyone.

She wasn't thinking at all as Jorah let her legs dangle once more over the edge of the bed, coming to stand between them. With one large hand splayed across the small of her back, he tilted her back so that he could lean over her. He kissed her collarbones, her breasts, the fingers of his other hand slipping beneath them to stroke the sensitive undersides as his thumbs teased her nipples before he took them, each in turn, in his mouth, his tongue swirling over the hardened pink nubs. He started to lay her back on the bed, but Dany stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You're over-dressed, husband," she said, tugging at the open neck of his shirt.

With a grin, Jorah stood and peeled it off, while Dany unlaced his breeches and tugged them down over his hips. She saw the jagged white scar on his hip where he'd taken Rakharo's _arakh_ when he'd helped her escape the Dothraki, and she leaned in to kiss it, caressing his buttocks and thighs, rubbing her cheek against the coarse patch of dark hair above his manhood.

When he finally joined her, naked, in their wedding bed, he didn't climb atop of her, as he'd seemed about to do before she'd made him undress--which came to Dany as something of a relief. Instead he stretched himself out alongside her, drawing her in for soft, slow kisses.

They quickly became more passionate; when he hooked one of his legs over her, Dany pushed him onto his back and moved to straddle him. He let out a few shuddering breaths, his eyelids fluttering, as the insides of her thighs rubbed against his length, but as her hands fumbled to slip him inside her, Jorah sat halfway up on his elbows. Thinking he meant to kiss her, she met him, but as she did so his hands went behind her back and he shifted his weight to one side. Before she could realize what was happening she was lying on her back, caged between his muscular arms.

Her heartbeat quickened even as she realized that this position was nothing at all like being mounted from behind, which was how she had expected Jorah take her, making her submissive to him, he her lord, she his lady wife--but not his queen when she was in his bed--as Drogo had done. Drogo had never made love to her like _this_ , looking down at her with love in his eyes, his lips softly smiling; the only time they had come close was when Dany had taken control and mounted him, and though he had enjoyed her assertiveness enough to let her ride him as often as he rode her, it had not inspired him to depart any further from the Dothraki ways.

And, in truth, she had thought they were the ways of all men--and Doreah's lessons in the womanly art of love had not disabused her of this notion: to take their pleasure, or to let women give them pleasure, and to find her own if she knew how, but not to go to any effort to give it themselves. That Jorah's gaze never wavered from hers filled Dany with a profound sense of trust: learning to love him with her body would not be the traumatic experience it had been when she'd wed Drogo as a maiden; it might even prove to fulfill some of the more romantic notions she'd had of love as a child.

Still, even though Jorah carefully positioned himself and pushed gingerly into her wetness, she cried out. Not in pleasure, but in pain.

Though the discomfort hardly compared with the agony of childbirth, or even when Drogo had her maidenhead, it came so unexpectedly--and disappointingly--that her eyes smarted with sudden tears. Jorah was a big man, to be sure, but so had Drogo been, and Dany, while slight of build, was no maid. This should not be.

Jorah slipped out of her, dropping to support his weight on one elbow as he brought the other hand up to stroke her cheek. He murmured tender words to her: her body had been changed by birthing, and found love different with every partner, but soon enough she would learn him and remember what to do.

She drew a deep breath as he shifted to enter her again, with the utmost care, little by little until at last his length was buried in her, her mound pressed against his body as he held himself, motionless, over her, giving her the time to acquaint herself with the feel of him inside her. And in that moment of their joining, she remembered another time when Jorah had spoken comforting words to her about the initially painful act of love, and how it would get easier.

From almost the first moment of meeting him he'd given her succor where she most needed it. Always her kind knight, her protector, now her lover. His body was a mantle over her as surely as the cloak signifying his his protection which he'd put about her shoulders to make her his wife.

Dany wrapped herself about him, her arms enfolding his broad, well-muscled shoulders, her legs around his waist, ankles crossing so that the heel of one foot pressed into the small of his back, coaxing him to move inside her. Slowly, and with a roll of his hips against hers, he withdrew, the friction he created against her making her gasp--though not, this time--thankfully--with pain. Her fingers strayed to the curling ends of his hair, letting it twine around her fingers, as she bore her heel harder into his back, pushing him still further within her. He groaned deep in his throat, his eyes open and holding her gaze all the time, and Dany marveled at how beautiful he was as he received all he'd long desired from her.

"I love you," she whispered; at her words, he seemed to fill her even more fully. She felt his heartbeat quicken against her breast, and his thrusts and withdrawals, too, so that she was sure he must be at the brink of spilling into her.

No sooner had she thought it, however, than he went still above her, drawing a deep, steadying breath before claiming her lips again as he--so slowly--rocked his hips down, deep, against hers. The movement carried her to the edge, but not quite over, and she whimpered against his mouth as he retreated, denying her release. Jorah's control was arousing--she hadn't realized a man _could_ prolong his gratification; when trysts with Drogo had left her frustrated, Doreah had helped her to find the release her husband had not--and so was the new thought that the act of love was not merely reaching an end, but a journey to be enjoyed together as much as the destination. And perhaps they could arrive in each other's arms, too.

Every journey, of course, has an end, and by the end of even the most exquisitely pleasurable ones, the traveler still looks forward to the arrival. So it was that Dany lay, sticky with sweat--hers and his--and panting his name because the pleasure was becoming unbearable to her with the longing for him to take her home. But she would not allow herself to go without him--though she clenched around him, trusting in his experience to lead her there in his own time--a reversal of their roles as queen and knight which she found surprisingly heady.

And then his control slipped, and he drove harder and faster into her, his face red and his arms like ropes pulled taut almost to the point of breaking on either side of her, and Dany knew there would be no pulling back this time. She closed her eyes, to give herself over to her inevitable release...

"My queen," Jorah ground out as he collapsed, heaving, upon her.

And Dany surrendered beneath him.


	20. The House with the Red Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany finds a house, but Jorah is not certain that he can call it home.

"The light will be gone soon," said Jorah, laying a hand on Dany's shoulder to hold her back from turning down a side street cloaked in more shadow than the one along which they presently walked. "We should go back to the inn."

All cities were dark after nightfall, but this one would be darker than most, situated as it was amid cliffs where the island had broken off from the mainland when the Doom consumed the Valyrian Freehold. Though Jorah's unease with the situation was not borne of any degree of superstition, he could see why it was rumored that the Doom still ruled this city; even three hundred years later, whatever fumes had belched from the now dormant volcanoes still lingered in the sky, washing it in a weird reddish haze, and the inhabitants themselves, brave folk though they were, vacated the streets as soon as the sun dipped below the faces of the cliffs, the only light beaming through narrow slats in the heavily shuttered windows of their houses and shops.

"Just a few more streets," Dany replied, undeterred; her eyes squinting into the dim ahead. "I'm certain we are close. Perhaps up that hill--"

" _Daenerys_." Jorah's longer strides carried him in front of her, effectively cutting off her path, though he took her shoulders in hand for good measure. "We've been wandering the streets since dawn, without stopping for a noon meal. You did not even break your fast, and Rhaego has been fussing in that sling for the past hour--"

"But no longer. He's suckling, and looks near to falling asleep."

" _I_ would like to fill my belly and fall into bed."

Jorah hardly cared how petulant he sounded. This wasn't at all how he'd expected to spend the day after his wedding. While relieved that Dany had delayed their setting sail for Pentos, he'd thought that if that were to happen, it would have been due to persuading her that they should spend the day abed, discovering the new world of pleasures marriage allowed them, not because a dream in the small hours of the morning had taken her from his arms and in search of something that was not him.

"You've complained more today than you did when we were wandering through the Red Waste," Dany said.

"As I recall, in the Red Weste I was too weak and thirsty and hungry and _worried about you_ to complain."

A weary smile ghosted across her face. "Exactly so."

Her palms settled against Jorah's chest, and the sleeping babe bound to her body pressed close and warm between them; the wide eyes Dany turned up to him reflected twin rising moons rising over the clifftops.

"I have to find it, Jorah. It's here, I know."

He gathered her hands together in one of his, and the other cupped her cheek. She was so imploring, her voice choked with desperation, that Jorah wanted to give her what she asked. But that was impossible.

"Your house with the red door is in Braavos, love. You lived there with your brother when you were a little girl, and you've dreamed of it your whole life. Last night--"

Dany gave her head a little shake, shrugging away from Jorah's touch: the dragon, awoken.

"Last night was different. For once I walked through the red door--always before it has been locked to me. And you were there, too, with Rhaego and his brothers." Her brow furrowed. "Or they might have been dragons. I don't remember exactly."

"Dragons!" Jorah snorted. "Why didn't you say in the first place? Dragons _must_ mean this was no mere dream, but a vision for our future course. You've convinced me now."

Her jaw tightened and face flamed. "How dare you mock me!"

"My queen--" Jorah began, out of habit.

"Yes, I am your queen," Dany cut him off, as was her habit, as well; her voice and body trembled with simmering rage. "But I would have thought that being your _wife_ would be enough to merit a little respect."

Jorah's mouth hung open, stunned as if she'd slapped him across the cheek; if she had done, it would have been deserved.

"You're right, Daenerys. Forgive me." Unable to meet her wounded gaze, he turned to scan the street down which she had led them. "A little time remains us before sunset. Let's see what lies up this hill."

He reached back to take her arm, but Dany withheld herself from his touch and remained rooted to the cobbles where he'd stopped her.

"No," she said, her voice heavy with defeat. " _You_ are right. I do not deserve your mockery, but I am being silly. We will go back to the inn."

Though Jorah had no desire to stumble about a strange city in the dark and the gloom for houses that existed only in dreams, he took no satisfaction in Dany declaring him victor of this particular quarrel. She took his arm when he offered it, but held her body stiffly apart from his and uttered not a word during their miles' walk back to the Dragon's Nest, where they had stayed since they made port in Valyria.

When they had supped and settled into their bedchamber for the night, Jorah did his best to cheer her up by playing with Rhaego. After a day confined to his mother's body in a sling, the child wanted to stretch his gangly limbs and expend his energy. Having mastered crawling about on hands and knees, Rhaego had lately begun to push up onto the balls of his feet in a maneuver reminiscent of the awkward stride of a young colt--or a bear cub, Jorah told the horselord's son, and taught him to growl as he lumbered about. The effect was quite comical, Rhaego looking almost rabid as drool streamed from his mostly toothless grinning mouth onto the rushes that covered the floor.

Tonight, however, Dany did not laugh at these antics as she was wont. Nor did she lend her voice in praise when Jorah let Rhaego's long fingers wrap around his, clutching with a grip that seemed born to wield a Dothraki _arakh_ , and walked the boy upright around the room on the tops of his own feet--though this did not daunt Rhaego from expressing his delight with a shriek that surely terrified the patrons who shared their walls.

Throughout all of this, Dany lay curled on the bed, her arms wrapped around her one remaining dragon's egg as she had used to hold her belly when it was swollen with Rhaego in her womb. And when Rhaego had worn himself out and Jorah tucked him into his cradle before joining Dany where only last night they had loved as one flesh, one heart, one soul, she turned her back to him, giving her embrace instead to a stone.

 _Splendid_ , he thought, twisting the sheets in his fists. One day wed, and already he'd managed to make his wife a cold bedfellow.

It wouldn't do, he thought, stealing a glance at her, his eyes drawn to the dragon's egg.

 _That_ , especially, would not do.

Next morning they again rose early, and as they broke their fast Dany still had few words for him, except as pertained to their impending voyage to Pentos. So Jorah swallowed his skepticism--and a healthy measure of pride--and spoke to the innkeep in the hope that Dany might forgive this perceived offense, at least, before they landed at Magister Illyrio's and she learned of the worse one. _Why_ had he sent that damnable letter to Varys?

"Have you heard tell of a house in this city with a red door?"

The innkeep nearly dropped the flagon he'd brought for Jorah--beer with lemon, as he preferred it in the morning--so astonishing did he, apparently, find the query. And frightening--Jorah could practically smell the fear, the telltale stench of fresh sweat mingled with the innkeep's perpetual odor of sour ale.

Dany seemed to have noticed it, as well. Previously slumped in her chair, picking at her oatcakes and boiled eggs, she sat up straight as if perched upon the Iron Throne, her appetite all in her eyes as she watched the innkeep. Alarmed, Jorah thought of her father King Aerys.

"Atop...atop the S-summer Hill," the innkeep stammered. "No one lives there now. It's said that before the..." He swallowed, hard, his fear a lump protruding from the sagging skin of his throat. "Before the _Doom_...it belonged to a Red Priest."

"A Red Priest of Asshai?" Dany asked.

"Aye, m'lady. It's demon-haunted, folks say. That's why the door's painted red--to hold the demons and their fire within."

Despite his skepticism of the mystical, Jorah's own brush with it in the House of the Undying made him mislike the idea of Dany's dreams having any tie, even an imagined one, with Asshai. His neck prickled as Quaithe's masked visage rising up in his mind like a curl of flame, yet he heard himself say, "My lady wife would see this house."

The innkeep's tongue darted out to moisten his lips as his gaze flicked from Jorah to Dany, then back again to Jorah. "But...Did you hear what I said?"

"The men of Westeros fear Valyria, saying the Doom still rules here." Jorah leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out beneath the table as he drank his tangy beer. "Yet in all our long wayfaring in Essos, my lady and I have found no place more like our own country, nor so devoid of ill portents as your city. Would _you_ dwell here if it was Doomed?"

"No," the innkeep conceded, shifting his weight and wringing his apron in his roughened hands. "But--"

The legs of Dany's chair screeched on the floorboards as she pushed back from the table and stood in a fluid movement of silvery braid and midnight blue kirtle. "The men of Westeros may fear, but the Queen does not. I _will_ see the house with the red door."

Jorah could not but be a little aroused at the authority she wielded so effortlessly, which brooked no further argument from the innkeep. He bobbed courtesies and scurried off to find someone to mind the tavern while he conducted his royal guests on their errand; without so much as the bribe of a copper for his obedience, a boy ran down to the quay to alert Captain Groleo that _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ would _not_ be sailing with the morning tide, after all. For his part, Jorah did not begrudge her a measure of submission when her eyes touched his for the first time since this quarrel began between them.

"I thought you didn't believe my dream contained any true meaning," she said, tilting her chin slightly upward.

"What I do or do not believe is hardly relevant to what my queen believes. "

The corners of her mouth twitched, softening the lines that had etched her face.

Jorah added, in gentler tones, "Or, more to the point, what my _wife_ believes."

 _This_ earned him a full smile, and he let out a breath which he felt as if he'd held all night.

"You've forgiven me, then?" he asked.

The glimmer in Dany's eyes as she seated herself and tucked in to her eggs with a relish brought more relief than an affirmative would have. "Ask me again after I've seen this house."

~*~

The innkeep's compliance with Dany's orders extended only insofar as he guided them to the foot of Summer Hill, from which a red door was clearly visible through the rusted iron gate that surrounded the manse. Dany took pity on the man, who quaked in his knee-high boots, thanking him for his service and releasing him to return to his inn before she hitched up her skirts and started up the cracked stones that had once formed a grand footpath to the house of some highborn--or highly revered--citizen.

But Jorah could not resist a dig at the man's lack of courage before he followed her. "It seems to me that no door, no matter what color it may be, will keep demons inside a house a house of broken windows and crumbling walls."

For all his blustering talk, though, Jorah's guard raised higher with each step that brought them nearer to the manse which had once belonged to a Red Priest of Asshai. The hairs at the back of his neck stood as his senses perceived something untoward, even if the place was not demon haunted as the innkeep claimed. He unsheathed his sword as he stepped around Dany and held his free arm in front of her as they entered the place, his unease mounting even though Dany declared that it was no more than a grand old house in need of repair and a good scouring to relieve it of smells of rot and filth. Indeed, none of these criticisms seemed to hinder her admiration of the furnishings and mosaics and murals and tapestries and carved trims around doorways and alcoves that depicted none other than dragons and mountains that belched fire.

"Jorah, what would you say if I told you I want to buy this house?"

He blinked, not so much at Dany's question as at the realization that _this_ was what had niggled at the back of his mind since the innkeep had given credence to her dream by informing them that this place did, indeed, exist--though he could not, at the moment, understand why he found the proposition so troubling. He had, after all, encouraged her to settle for a time should they find a safe and suitable place along the way to Pentos.

"Jorah?"

Shaking off his stupor, he twitched his lips into a smile and mustered a light tone of voice. "I would say how very relieved I am that you've forgiven me."

Her laughter shimmered through the halls which had been so long devoid of any such sign of life--perhaps, given the identity of its former occupant, never had contained joy--and it seemed to Jorah that light had been cast into the shadowy corners much as Dany had brought light to his own darkness. Including the recent darkness of their quarrel, which was banished as she crossed the room to him and pressed warm lips to his.

Not _all_ the darkness was gone, Jorah noted as his eyes drifted to a corridor that was untouched by the ruddy light that spilled in through the broken windows. And he had not grown so accustomed to his role as Dany's lover, her husband, that he could easily step out of the former role as adviser and guard.

Raising his head, he asked, "Is it your intent to live in this house, or merely to own it? And what of Pentos?"

"Do _you_ wish to go to Pentos, husband?"

"You know I find no plan more ill-advised."

"Neither do I," she said. "Not if there is any place on this earth where I may feel at home. Until now I never thought there could be."

She moved from the circle of his arms as she spoke, once again taking in her surroundings, running her hands over the carved dragons with as much care and tenderness as they had slipped over Jorah's body on their wedding night.

"All my life I have wandered from place to place, hardly able to rest for the thought that at any moment I must be prepared to move on again. I am weary, Jorah," she said, with a weight in her voice that made him wondered how he had not before now noticed the lines about her eyes and the faintly purple hue of the delicate skin beneath them. "I want to lie down beneath my own roof with my child and my husband and sleep without fear. Where better than in the land of my forebears?"

She was looking at him over her shoulder, standing before a window of shattered stained glass that once depicted three dragons--or a three-headed dragon--that hung over a gilt altar whose pedestal for the likeness of the one god of Asshai was barren. Jorah could imagine what relic Dany would place there, when she made this her home.

 _When_ , not _if_ \--for he knew she would not be dissuaded from this course, even before she said, "I hear their sweet song calling me to rest beneath the dragon's wings, and grow strong."

They would not go to Pentos; Jorah's treachery would not be found out. All that he wanted was what she wanted, too: a life, and love.

Why, then, did he not feel pleased with this turn of events?

Jorah turned the question over and over in his mind during the weeks that followed, during which they embarked upon the task of making the manse livable, and restoring it to its former grandeur. It was not until the stained glass window above the altar had been mended to depict the sigil Dany had adopted upon their marriage, the three-headed red dragon with the body of a black bear, that he had his answer.

While it was true enough that a return to Pentos might well mean the end of all he had worked so hard to achieve with Dany, he had also viewed it as the start of his journey home, the staging ground from which she would launch her invasion of Westeros, which, should she prove victorious, would see him reinstated as Lord of Bear Island--and, no doubt, granted more extensive holdings, and a more impressive title, as befit the consort of the queen. Not that he wouldn't be content merely to have that which had been stripped from him restored. Dany's success had never been assured, except perhaps when she had Khal Drogo's ten thousand cavalry at her command. Now that she had no immediate plan for conquest, his own dreams had never seemed more unattainable, nor Bear Island farther away than as she settled here in the Targaryen homeland beneath its red-tinted--or was it blood-stained?--sky.

 _I will follow you however far from Bear Island you may lead me, because_ you _are my home_ , the words he had so passionately declared to her in Qarth echoed in his mind, mocking him, as did the reply Dany had made him then: _Pretty courtly words, sweet ser, but I don't believe you truly mean them_. At the time he'd been incensed that she doubted his sincerity, but now he wondered whether she'd known him better than he knew himself.

 _No_. He'd given Bear Island up once before for love. He would do it again, a thousand times over, for Daenerys.

With that thought, he was able to suppress some of the longings for his old home in the north, and he threw himself wholeheartedly into the momentous task of settling into his new home--the first he'd had since his exile. And despite the proliferation of dragons about the place and the unsettling sky, he found that it suited him better than he'd first expected. He felt a lord again, overseeing the business of the estate--and unlike when he'd been Lord of Bear Island, the gold Xaro Xhoan Daxos had given Dany for the dragon's egg Pyat Pree stole from her was more than sufficient for Jorah to keep them in a style to which neither of them had hitherto been accustomed, except when they had been dependent upon the largesse of such wealthy men as Daxos and Illyrio Mopatis. Days passed in pleasant employment, and Jorah had never known more peaceful evenings than the ones he spent with Dany, wiling away the lengthening autumn nights reading aloud to each other from books of Westeros--the ones he'd given her, and new ones she acquired from booksellers in the markets--being persuaded to teach her the tunes to the songs, making love...

And, of course, Rhaego occupied them a great deal, not so much with the care of him, as when he was a newborn babe, thanks to the nurse Dany had brought with them from Qarth and the other servants now in their employ. But the more the child grew, the more of their attention he commanded--and Dany and Jorah readily and delightedly gave it. Rhaego crawled about the manse after Jorah's dogs and the cats that prowled in and out of the kitchen; he began to use his long, nimble fingers to pull himself up on low furniture which then served to help him keep his balance as he tested out his wobbly colt's legs. The boy seemed never to tire, in constant motion and mischief from the moment he woke each morning--except when he suckled at his mother's breast, at which time he curled his lithe limbs up, tucking them against his body, the fingers of one hand twirling his abundant silvery hair, and he was very much the infant Jorah so vividly remembered helping Dany deliver in the ruins of Vaes Tolorro nearly a year ago.

"Someday it will be _our_ son you suckle thus," he remarked one night as Dany nursed Rhaego in her chair before the fireplace. "Or daughter," he added when she looked up at him; he smiled at the thought of a little girl, pretty and sweet of temper as Dany must have been as a child--as she still was, but for those moments when stirred the Dragon Queen.

And then, with a sudden hope he hadn't realized had been within him, he ventured, "You haven't had your moon's blood since we wed."

Three months had gone since the septon had pronounced them man and wife and they had consummated their union in their marriage bed. She had scarcely been married that long to Khal Drogo when she conceived Rhaego.

"I haven't had my moon's blood since I gave birth," she gave him an apologetic look as she removed the drowsy babe from her breast and, rising from her chair, called for the nurse to take Rhaego away to bed. "I think I may not until Rhaego is weaned."

"Of course." Embarrassed, Jorah flicked his gaze from his wife to the fire.

In an effort not to become despondent over the fact that another year or more might pass before Dany would be able to conceive _his_ child, or jealous that Drogo still had _this_ over him, he concentrated on the intricate carvings of dragons of the hearthstones, which seemed to breathe the dancing flames. They stirred a memory.

"The gate to my hall on Bear Island," he said after a moment. "Have I ever described it to you?"

"No." Dany's face seemed to glow with interest as she approached him, and, hitching up the skirt of her light silken gown, she revealed an expanse of bare leg as she seated herself in Jorah's lap.

He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in the faintly floral scent of her hair as she tucked her head into the curve of his neck. "Upon it is carved a woman, naked but for the skin of a bear around her. In one arm she holds a babe at breast, and in the other she wields a battleaxe. Whenever I picture her now, she has your face."

Dany looked up at him with eyes that laughed along with her lips. "Can you imagine me marching to war alongside the she-bears of House Mormont?"

Jorah conjured up the images of Maege, broad of shoulder and barrel-chested as the Old Bear in her mail and half-helm, and Dacey, lanky as a lad but swift enough with her sword that he should not like to be caught off his guard by her. He pictured Dany between them, a slip of a girl compared to their hulking figures, though the fire in her eyes burned no less fiercely, and found he no more liked the thought of crossing _her_ than his warrior aunt and cousin. If she learned how he had betrayed her, he might one day find her joining ranks with those other women of his house upon whom his deeds had brought dishonor.

Anxious to put away _those_ unsettling thoughts, he said, "Not quite so easily as I conjure the image of you cloaked in a bearskin."

"Perhaps you should have given me one for my bride's cloak."

"More often I imagine you stretched naked upon the bearskin rug in my bedchamber back home. Beneath me."

Dany's smile softened as she leaned in to brush her lips across his. "Does enacting this fantasy require a bearskin rug? Or will me stretching naked on this Myrish carpet suffice?"

Jorah answered by lowering her onto the rug and making quick work of her gown to reveal her breasts, light and supple in his hands since she had just nursed the babe. As he stretched himself over her and kissed her, she deftly undid his laces so that he hardly had to break away from her to shrug out of doublet and shirt and shove his breeches down over his hips.

When he entered her, the muscles of her secret place constricted tightly around him, and for a long moment he rested, unmoving, in the smooth embrace of her thighs, and imagined that he had stepped into his beloved hall of hewn pine, and been welcomed home to the open arms of his kin.


	21. A Year Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the dragon and the bear prove themselves nocturnal creatures, Dany finds solace from an old insecurity and her future path made clear to her.

"What a pair we are." Dany glanced from the dying embers in the fireplace as her husband shuffled out of their bedchamber.

Jorah was lacing up his breeches, a bedrobe thrown loosely about his shoulders, and made directly for the sideboard, where he took a goblet down from the cupboard and poured himself a drink. Returning her gaze to the fire, Dany drew up her knees in her chair, pulling her blanket more snuggly around her, and sipped at her own wine which she'd been nursing for some time.

"You cannot sleep for dreaming," she murmured, "and I cannot sleep because I don't."

Jorah grunted by way of reply, draining his goblet and filling it again before he padded across the red and black tiled floor to stoke the fire. Replacing the poker, he stepped back to stand beside Dany's chair to warm himself, though she noticed that he continued to shiver long after the blaze had crackled up high enough in the grate to cast the black dragons carved about the hearth in silhouette. Experience had taught her to reach out from the folds of her blanket and slip her hand into his, but tonight his icy fingers did not close around hers and cease their trembling. He resisted her touch, the soles of his feet scuffing on the marble the only sound he made as he withdrew once from the room.

Though perplexed by his behavior, Dany did not uncurl herself from her chair before the fire to go after him and inquire about his troubles; she was occupied enough with her own.

The house with the red door had been the subject of her dreams for as far back as she could remember, but it had not once tormented her sleep since she'd found it in Valyria. Strangely, the absence of the recurring hadn't brought her sounder sleep. Like Jorah, she'd always presumed that the place plagued her because it had been the only home where she'd known something like the care of a father, and both had been cruelly torn from her when she was but a little girl. Now, though, she didn't know whether her dreams had been of Ser Willem Darry's house, after all, or instead the one in which she now resided.

And if the latter, what did it mean? Had she fulfilled some course that had been ordained for her? Was she meant to settle permanently in Valyria? What, then, of the Iron Throne? What about the crones' prophesy that Rhaego was the stallion who mounts the world? How could he do that, if his mother hid herself away without making _her_ rightful claim?

A burning log cracked in two and fell, scattering ash and sparks like a swarm of fireflies, drawing Dany's gaze to the altar where her lone dragon's egg presided in place of a statue of the Asshai'I god--or perhaps, before him, one of the old gods of Valyria--which had formerly stood there to receive praise and petitions from those who had lived here before her. It wasn't just the sacred position, here or upon the altar where she'd placed it in the ruined temple in Vaes Tolorro, that impressed Dany with a feeling that her dragon's egg held some great import, and as she beheld the one that remained to her, she felt more spiritually bereft of the other two than ever she had felt by the gods' deaf ears to her prayers. She uncurled her legs, her blanket puddling on the floor as she stood, and padded across the fire-warmed mosaic to the altar.

She ran her hands across the scaly petrified shell of the egg and gazed up at the darkened stained glass window above. The dragon had three heads, but like her, this dragon had been deprived of its brothers.

But the dragon also had the body of a black bear, and right now Dany's bear had need of her. Her fingers blessed the egg with one final caress, then she turned from the altar and followed the flickering glow of candlelight into the corridor down which her and Jorah's private chambers lay.

She found him hunched, quill in hand, over the big oak desk where he conducted the business of the house when it was required of him but otherwise avoided like the bloody flux. Jorah was an active man, preferring duties that called for him to walk or ride about the grounds or in the city. He never came in here when he woke in the night--which was as frequent occurrence these days as Dany not being able to sleep.

Though unlike her, Jorah _did_ dream. Terrible dreams, about the nightmarish visions he'd seen in the House of the Undying, from which he awakened drenched in a cold sweat, crying out for his father, or for forgiveness, or something wholly incoherent about crows. Most nights he took comfort easily enough by loving Dany, holding himself over her on arms whose muscles coiled tight as rope beneath his skin, moving in and out of her until his trembling focused into the steady rhythm of his thrusts; then he would slip into Rhaego's nursery, pluck the babe from his cradle and hold him for a long time, to return to bed and lie down as peaceful as a sleeping babe himself.

Dany wondered if giving Jorah a child of his own would cure the ills that stemmed from his troubles with his own father. She'd not forgotten the hope that had lit his eyes that night, months ago now, when he'd spoken of her absent moon's blood. If she'd realized her reply would extinguish it entirely, she never would have told him that nursing Rhaego would prevent her from conceiving again.

In truth, _she_ felt a little saddened that she would not have a child with Jorah as quickly as she'd had one with Drogo. Pregnancy had strengthened the bond of a marriage that did not even have the foundation of friendship and trust and survival upon which she and Jorah had built _their_ house. She remembered how Jorah's face had looked that first night when they'd escaped the Dothraki, when he'd placed his hands on her belly and felt Rhaego move inside her, and when she'd delivered her child naked in his arms; she wanted to see him wear that expression of awe and love and joy again, which would be all the greater for it being his child this time and not another man's. Not only for his sake, but for her own, as well, as Mirri Maz Duur had denied her the experience of sharing Rhaego's birth with his sire.

Ahe couldn't help but wonder, as well, if more children might fill the empty places in her heart left by her dragon's eggs.

So, she had begun to feed Rhaego bits of soft meat and bread and cheese and even give him sips of warm goat's milk from a cup, in the hope that he might become interested in proper food and wean soon. He did enjoy them--but only as additions to his usual meals; the ravenous little dragon showed no intention of giving up the breast. "A wise lad," Jorah had joked, but to Dany this was a matter of healing wounds she couldn't help but feel she had, at least in part, inflicted upon her husband by sending him into the warlocks' den, and she saw no humor in the situation.

"Won't you come back to bed, Jorah?"

He lifted his head, slowly, regarding her through bleary eyes. Clearly, he had not heard her approach.

She stepped farther into the room; it seemed smaller than it was, due to the dark paneled walls of mostly empty bookshelves which were only broken by one window of dark tinted glass and a desk which could have sat an entire small council around it.

"Surely this is no business that cannot be attended to on the morrow," she said.

As she approached, Jorah drew the parchment closer to him, curling one arm around it, as though to conceal what he had been writing.

"It cannot," he said. "I ought to have attended to it long before now."

Dany kept her eyes on his as she covered his hand with her own. "What is it?"

"A letter." She watched the roll of Jorah's throat as he swallowed hard. "To my father."

Dany's gaze darted down to the parchment, as if to have her husband's words confirmed in writing even though she knew them to be true. But he had not written a single word.

"Good," she told him. "Then he will write to you in turn, and it will ease your mind to know that he's alive and well."

"Unless he's not."

Her grip on his hand tightened. "Surely in either case, knowing for certain is better than dreaming the worst."

"Aye."

"And if he does live, it may be that his sleep is plagued with similar fears about his only son. It will hearten him to know that you are well."

Jorah made a growling sort of sound as he leaned back in his chair and scuffed his fingers over his stubbled chin and cheeks. "If I know the Old Bear, it will only prompt him to resume badgering me to go to the Wall and take the Black."

"News of your marriage will put a stop to that," said Dany with a smile, pushing herself up so that she sat at the edge of the desk. She rubbed her foot along his well-muscled calf. "What will he think, when he learns that you've married the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms?"

"I couldn't begin to guess."

Dany's foot stilled. It was not like him to mince words with her. "You could. You know exactly."

He met her eyes, though the lines about his face deepened as if it pained him to do so. "He wasn't best pleased to learn of my marriage to Lynesse Hightower."

"He thought her an unsuitable wife for you?"

That was surprising, for the Hightowers, Dany knew, were fine old stock; she would have thought that in marrying Lynesse, Jorah would have elevated his poor house. Somehow, she found it strangely heartening that her good father had not liked Jorah's previous wife --which was ridiculous, because if Dany reminded Jorah of Lynesse, then Jeor Mormont wouldn't like her, either.

But _could_ she be like Lynesse? Viserys might have raised Dany to believe that as a princess she was entitled to a certain style of living, but they'd never had the means for her to really take it to heart and grow spoiled; she'd learned to be thankful for the smallest kindness. Lynesse, on the other hand, had left Jorah while they yet lived in the city of Lys, which, though a poor sort of living, would have seemed luxurious compared to the nomadic life Jorah adopted when he took up with the Dothraki. She would never have suffered herself to grow accustomed to _that_ , as Dany had. Nor could she have weathered the Red Waste for weeks. Or birthed a babe in the courtyard of a dead city with no midwives to help her. If Lynesse was no she-bear, neither was she a dragon.

Dany studied Jorah, who looked far away as he contemplated his answer. He'd described himself as drunk on victory and wine when he'd asked for Lynesse's hand, but Dany couldn't believe that was all there was to the story, that the watchful man who'd prevented so much harm from befalling her could have done something as reckless as marry a woman simply because she was beautiful. He _must_ have seen some quality in Lynesse that made him think her, above all other ladies, the right one to be Lady Mormont of Bear Island. And whatever that was, it must be a quality he recognized in Dany, too.

At length, Jorah answered her. "Lynesse was so young. And I was a younger man then."

"And I am younger still." At the catch in Dany's voice, Jorah seemed to rejoin her in the present moment.

"Forgive my bluntness. Have I offended you, my love?"

She shook her head, unable at first to answer audibly. "No. I mean, _you_ do not. The idea…"

Love knew no age--that she had given Jorah her heart proved that--but if his own father thought her too young to make him a suitable wife, other men would, too. And if she was too young to make a suitable wife for a lord of a minor house, then how could she expect anyone to bend the knee to her as queen?

She was older than Joffrey Baratheon, though--or Lannister, as the case seemed to be. And the same age as Robb Stark, to whom the northmen, Jorah's people included, pledged their fealty as King in the North. And _she_ had produced an heir to the Iron Throne already; had either of them even bedded a maid? No, her age need not preclude her. And if her sex did, she would show them all that a she-dragon was more fearsome than any man who bore the sigil of lion or wolf.

Or bear.

Which meant she need not be afraid to come out with the question that had long troubled her.

"Why do you love me, Jorah? Is it because I am like your Lady Lynesse?"

They had been at the brink of this discussion, she remembered suddenly, before she sent him to the House of the Undying. How had not thought of it again until now?

She was equally surprised that Jorah was so long in answering her, though she liked that he gave his reply due consideration rather than trotting out some pretty words he had rehearsed in the event that she put the question to him. All the time he thought, his gaze never wavered from Dany's, as if to reassure her that he hid no lie from her; and his eyes continued to hold her as he pushed his chair back from the desk, stood, and drew her hands out of her lap, his long fingers closing almost completely around them.

"I loved Lynesse because I thought she was you."

As Dany's brow crinkled in confusion, Jorah raised one of his hands to cup her cheek; the roughened tips of his fingers tickled the base of her scalp where tendrils of her hair had come loose from her braid as she'd tossed and turned in bed.

"You _are_ the great lady I imagined her to be," he went on, his voice husky. "My true queen of love and beauty."

They _were_ pretty words, and after a lifetime with a brother who never uttered any but that were ugly, and a year of marriage to a man who used none at all, Dany could not but react favorably to being spoken to in this manner by a man whom she knew worshiped her as a goddess, and in whom she had never found falsehood.

She raised her own hand to his cheek, mirroring his touch, and drew him down to her so that she might express to him with lips and tongue just what his words meant to her, and the love that swelled in her breast at the sound of them. Jorah had to bend to meet her on her low perch atop the desk; his tongue swept into her mouth in a breathless rush that gave Dany a sensation that the world had tilted, only for her to realize that _he_ was leaning her back, cradling her in one muscular arm as he braced himself on the paper strewn desk with the other. He made a soft sound rather like a whimper when she briefly broke their kiss, which changed to an almost-growl of pleasure low in his throat when she shifted so that she lay back completely. Her silken bedrobe fell open as she sprawled across the desk, arms and legs open, inviting him to work not on parchment and ink but instead on her full, firm breasts and her warm, wet sex.

This being the sort of indoor work he enjoyed, Jorah did not hesitate to shrug out of his own robe and unlace his breeches, freeing his already hardened manhood as he climbed up with her. But though the desk dominated the room in size, it groaned rather loudly beneath Jorah's weight, belying its age. He gave Dany a wary look.

Grinning up at him she said, "Come, my valiant knight. We've braved greater dangers than creaky old desks."

He could not, of course, resist a challenge of that sort, and he dipped his head to nip at Dany's neck, raking his teeth lightly across her collarbones. His tongue just darted out to taste the hollow where they met beneath her throat, then worked its way down her chest to lick the valley between her breasts as the tip of his cock teased her between her parted thighs. The contact sent a jolt of sensation through her, and her hand knocked against some object on the desk which, the next instant, shattered on the floor.

"We only just finished restoring this house," Jorah muttered, pushing himself back off the desk, pulling Dany upright with him. "Don't let's destroy it again."

She had just time enough to glimpse green shards of pottery glistening up from jet black ink spilled over the tiles and make a joke about how at least he had an excuse not to do the loathsome business at his desk, since he no longer had the necessary tools to write, before Jorah claimed her lips again, swallowing her giggle. As he kissed her, his hands slipped beneath her to cup her arse, drawing her to the utmost edge of the desk so that he could press into her.

Dany gasped as he filled her, and as he began to move within her, serving her the sweetest pleasure with each thrust and retreat, her head fell back and her eyes fluttered shut. She saw herself, a queen enthroned. Surely no king, of House Targaryen or the Usurper's line, had such satisfaction while sitting upon the Iron Throne. Not even her father King Aerys, who'd been the recipient of constant pricks of those conquered swords, she thought, choking back a perverse laugh.

After Jorah spilled into her, he gathered Dany into his arms and collapsed into the chair with her, a tangle of sweat-slicked skin and pounding hearts and ragged breaths. Dany pressed soft kisses the side of his throat, and felt the wild fluttering of his pulse and the rumble of his voice against her lips.

"Don't sell yourself short, love. You are not only my queen, but _the_ queen."

Shivering as the chill of the room touched her damp skin, Dany tucked her head beneath his chin and tugged his discarded bedrobe up over them.

"You crown me with love, husband, but to those I would rule I am the exiled daughter of the Mad King, with no throne and but one knight to help me win it. Sometimes I fear that anything more would be rather overselling."

Jorah's lips brushed her hair, and then his fingers touched her chin, tilting her face up so that he could kiss her brow. "The _sweet_ daughter of the Mad King…"

He kissed her eyelids. "…and wise…and brave…"

The tip of her nose. "…determined…"

Tiny kisses trailed across first one cheekbone… "…strong…" …and then the other. "…fierce…"

He lightly bit her lower lip before his mouth seared hers for a too-brief moment. He leaned his forehead against hers. "…and a dragon…"

A fire kindled in Dany's belly, and she sat up to look Jorah in the eyes, lifting her fingers to push an errant lock of hair off his forehead.

" _You_ are honorable and courageous and loyal and kind," she said, "and a tender father to another man's son. And you've done it all without once asking me for anything in return. So you mustn't sell yourself short, either, Jorah. Your father will see that you're a changed man."

His lips smiled, faintly, but his eyes darkened. "I am not a changed man, Daenerys. I never asked anyone for anything--save love."

Beneath her, his leg moved, as if to indicate he wished her to get up from his lap. Dany did, a little dazed, his answer reminding her of the time she'd asked whether he truly saw the error in the crime that had brought his exile. She was vaguely aware of him rising from the chair, too, lacing up his trousers and pulling her bedrobe over her shoulders and belting it closed around her, and guiding her out of the office and down the dim corridor.

They had scarcely set foot inside their bedchamber when she turned to him and blurted, "Do you remember what you said to me once? About us being the same in that I would never go to the _dosh khaleen_ , and you would never go to the Wall?"

"That was a fair while ago," he replied through a yawn.

He stripped off his breeches and stretched himself out on the voluminous feather mattress, then reached out his hand for Dany to join him in their bed. She shed her bedrobe and crawled in beside him as he drew the coverlet up over them.

"I've thought about it often," she said, "but I can't work out what you meant by it. I know you would be free, but that's not the whole of it. Is it?"

"Even if we've got nothing, you and I," Jorah said, his voice thick and drowsy, "so long as we have our lives, we will _live_ them."

The question loomed in the darkness like the grinning maw of a predator, so that Dany hardly dared ask. But she was the blood of the dragon, so she did not tuck tail and run, though her heart hung in her chest.

"But are we truly living, here?"

Jorah's only reply was his soft snore.  
~*~

At some point, Dany new she must have slept, because she awoke. The yellow light of morning slanted through the slats of the window shades like translucent bars of gold, and Jorah's beard pricked her skin as he nuzzled her ear.

"I dreamed of home," he murmured.

"A good dream?"

He nodded and hugged her close to him, cupping her milk-swollen breast in his hand and pressing his arousal against her backside. "You were with me, wearing a cloak of white bear fur-- _only_ a cloak, mind--and you ran down the gangplank to frolic in the snow. You packed balls of ice together and threw them at me, and then I made love to you."

"In the snow?" Dany shifted to allow him entrance.

He half-grunted his words as she ground her hips back into him. "In your bearskin cloak."

"Perhaps it was no dream, but a vision of the future," Dany said. "Perhaps when I conquer Westeros, I shall have the Iron Throne moved to Bear Island and make it my seat instead of King's Landing. Or I shall winter there."

"Winters on Bear Island are harsh; better to summer there."

"But you dreamed me in the snow. I have never seen it, you know. I should like to. And afterward, you could warm me up."

"There is that."

And as they made love slowly in the morning light, Dany had her answer.

"I have an errand for you in the city," she told Jorah as they dressed, meeting his gaze in the looking glass as her lady arranged her hair. "To tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail. First to Pentos, and then to Westeros."

Jorah's fingers froze in the middle of doing the fastenings on his green doublet. "You've had enough of rest?"

"I could rest here forever," Dany replied. "But so could I with the _dosh khaleen_. So could you on the Wall. Only when we are home will we _live_."

To her surprise, Jorah's eyes did not so much as flash in argument, but he bowed his head and said, "As my queen commands."

~*~

"It was a year ago to the day that Drogo died," said Dany, the wind unfurling her silver mane of hair like the green and black banners that topped the mainmast as _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ put out into the Summer Sea. " _Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now_ , you told me."

"And you did not shed a tear," said Jorah at her side, his cloak billowing around them. She felt his wary gaze upon her as he asked, "Will you now?"

Daenerys Targaryen did not weep.


	22. A Tangled Web

****Illyrio Mopatis was fatter than Jorah remembered, huffing in the vestibule from his climb up the manse's front steps.

"Forgive me for my intrusion, Princess," he said, making Dany a slight bow, "but a rumor made its way to me that Khal Drogo's bride had returned to the city. I had to see you with my own eyes before I could believe it."

"It's _Your Grace_ ," she corrected him. "My _khal_ is head, and my brother the king also. I am _Queen_ Daenerys now, Magister."

Jorah could not but smirk, despite his perturbation at Illyrio's unannounced arrival; it had been Dany's intention to surprise him with an invitation to sup with her in Drogo's Pentoshi residence, thus getting the upper hand on the man who was her only hope for an army with which to conquer Westeros.

"I'll not turn up at Illyrio's door as the Beggar King's heir," she'd told Jorah. "Even if I am little better off than Viserys, I will at least treat for my army in my own home. I will have the magister here to dine with me, and show him that I am a queen in my own right, not the frightened child-bride he knew, and more worth supporting as a Targaryen heir than my poor mad fool of a brother."

Even though Jorah would rather have been Illyrio's guest than master of the house that had belonged to Drogo, he couldn't deny the wisdom of Dany's plan. If only anything _could_ occur in Pentos without the magister's being aware of it. That was precisely why he was one of Lord Varys' little birds, and Illyrio's presence made Jorah wonder, not for the first time, just how far Mopatis' own webs stretched across Essos. The septon who'd married them in Valyria might have sung. Or the innkeep at The Dragon's Nest, where they'd stayed before settling into the house with the red door. Groleo, the captain of the ship Xaro Xhoan Daxos had given them was Pentoshi, or Daxos himself might have squawked, he of the bejeweled beak.

"Of course," Illyrio said, with a deferential bow, though his shrewd eyes glinted like currants in his doughy face. "Ser Jorah sent word of your brother's unfortunate demise."

Not to Illyrio, though. And as the magister lifted his gaze, his eyes flicked to Jorah over Dany's shoulder, the flash of contact telling him that Illyrio also knew about the more recent letter he had sent to Varys, from Qarth. Even though Jorah had told Dany he would write to Illyrio of Viserys' death, he held his breath when she looked back at him now, as if she'd overheard the silent communication that had passed between the two men.

But her youthful face did not line with hurt, nor did her eyes blaze violet hot fire at the discovery of betrayal; she smiled prettily at him, and reached for his hand.

"It is not just _my_ address that has changed," she said, drawing him alongside her as she wove her slender fingers through his. "Jorah is _ser_ no longer. He is my consort, these six moons. We wed in the sept in Valyria."

Illyrio's brows rose so high on his broad forehead that his surprise would have been comical, had the eyes beneath them not settled on Jorah as cold and sharp as Ned Stark's infamous blade. "Consort to the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms? Quite a step up from exiled knight. Or even from Lord of Bear Island."

Dany's grip tightened on Jorah's hand, her voice matching it. "But fitting for one who has proved himself worthy of the honor of my hand. And my love."

Making another bow, Illyrio said, "I knew my _friend_ would serve you well, but I never imagined quite in this capacity. He must have been a great comfort to Your Grace after the death of Khal Drogo. Why, you must be the first _khaleesi_ in history to take a second husband."

"I find it curious, Magister," said Dany, releasing Jorah's hand to step silently on her slippered feet closer to the other man, "that you so concern yourself with my marital status."

The long plait hung crookedly down her back as she peered up at the fat man with her head atilt, and Jorah's eyes followed the shimmering bead of water off the curling end of her hair, still damp from the bath they had been taking together until Illyrio's arrival had interrupted it.

"When last I sojourned in this city," her voice drew him back to the present, "as your esteemed guest, I had been under the impression that you were a staunch Targaryen loyalist."

"I was, Your Grace. I am."

"Then why are you not overjoyed to know that your dream of restoring the Targaryen dynasty did not die with Khal Drogo?"

 _Why, indeed?_ Jorah wondered even as Illyrio deliberately twitched his lips into a smile that scarcely looked pleased, much less overjoyed. Varys' plan could not have depended on _Viserys_ , could it? Yet it was plain to see that Daenerys' presence had run afoul of some plot that had, no doubt, been the result of Jorah's deception.

"It is only the shock, Your Grace. When I have recovered from it, I shall rejoice like the smallfolk, if it pleases my queen."

" _Is_ it so shocking, Magister? You sent Jorah to protect the heir to the Iron Throne, did you not?"

If by _protect_ she meant _spy_ … But Dany didn't give Illyrio the time to condemn Jorah with the truth, or to save his own skin.

"Or was he meant only to protect the last Dragon from the Usurper's assassins, and not from the fate of living out her days as a crone of the _dosh khaleen_?"

Illyrio's face flushed, and no longer because of his climb up the steps of the manse. Jorah did his best to enjoy watching Dany behave as a true queen reprimanding a faithless subject; it was a distraction from the growing possibility that the same attitude he so admired would prompt the humiliated Illyrio to exact his revenge by exposing Jorah's secret. Which was what Jorah might have done, were their positions reversed.

But the magister, at least in this instance, was not so quick to betray as he was rumored to be.

Or perhaps he simply had not heard a price he liked.

His eyes flicked again to Jorah as he bowed. "It would seem that I greatly underestimated _Prince_ Jorah."

"More than you know," said Dany. She drew up her shoulders, giving her head a little shake which sprinkled more droplets from her braid onto the marble tiles, the same color as the _hranna_ that grew in the Dothraki Sea, and the soft lichens of spring in the forests back home. "Because of his valor, I am not, in fact, the very last Dragon. Rhaego!"

She called out in the Dothraki she was teaching the child for him to run to her like the strongest, fastest horse in his father's _khalassar_. Whether he understood his mother's language or not, Rhaego announced his impending arrival from another part of the house by emitting squeals that would have been ear-piercing enough even if they had not echoed off the tiled floors and vaulted ceilings of the manse.

Or perhaps that was the memory of the wine merchant's screams as he was dragged, bound and naked, behind Dany's silver after his assassination attempt, which had featured as prominently as crows in Jorah's dreams as _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ sailed ever nearer to Pentos.

"Of course he is a little stallion," Dany said as Rhaego toddled on long, unbending legs ahead of his nurse into the vestibule. "The stallion who mounts the world, the crones prophesied in Vaes Dothrak. Though how else could he mount it but with the blood of the dragon?"

"How, indeed?"

Illyrio paled now, as he watched Rhaego fall onto his bottom at his mother's feet, his happy shrieks changing to wails as he stretched his arms up to her. Whatever the plan was, Jorah mused, rubbing his chin, another Targaryen heir was _not_ part of it. But to whom had Varys thrown his support that a magister of Pentos should concern himself with the affairs of the Seven Kingdoms?

"I see a deal of his father in him," Illyrio said, "but no one would deny his Targaryen blood. A fine lad. Khal Drogo never knew him?"

"I delivered him in a dead city of the Red Waste, and that night the _shierak qiya_ appeared in the heavens, and was visible as far away as Qarth and Valyria. Did you see it here?"

"They saw your bleeding star across the Narrow Sea in Westeros, Your Grace," Illyrio replied.

Dany looked at Jorah, and her embrace tightened around her son. "Would you favor me with your company at my table tonight, Magister, and with news of my country? And I shall tell you how Jorah slew my _khas_ so that my son would not be cut from my belly and thrown to the dogs."

Illyrio grimaced. "You honor me, Your Grace, though I find my appetite now rather spoiled."

~*~

Watching the fat magister devour every dish that was set before him, Jorah questioned the veracity of Illyrio's claims about his appetite. On the other hand, if this was less than he normally ate, then Dany ought to be relieved for her coffers, which, though improved from when they'd lived in Qarth, penniless and dependent on Xaro Xhoan Daxos' dubious generosity, had been diminished by her purchase of the house in Valyria. The estate produced a little income, thanks to Jorah's management, but they had to employ a steward to run it in her absence, and there was the ship's captain and crew to maintain, as well.

The house in Valyria wasn't Jorah's hall on Bear Island, and he'd been ready as Dany to get on with their long delayed journey to reclaim their homeland in Westeros, but as he listened to her tell the story of their past year, he found himself nearly wishing they had _not_ left. After so many months spent almost solely in her company, it was strange to hear her speak of all that to another person, who had known them in another time, in another life, and to be relegated to the role of nursing his goblet of wine and picking at his own food while his wife took precedence over him as the queen when he had been lately accustomed to operating more or less as the head of their household.

Jorah's gaze drifted from Illyrio's enthusiastic eating to the murals painted on the walls behind him, which depicted scenes of the Doom of Valyria. There were such representations throughout the house, and not long before one of the serving girls had interrupted their bath to tell them of the magister's unexpected visit, Jorah had been so distracted by the one in that room that his cock had gone limp even as Dany crawled onto his lap in the steamy water and sheathed him within her tight wet folds.

She'd stroked his damp hair off his forehead and kissed his brow. "What troubles you, my sweet husband?"

"Such unhappy images hardly set the necessary mood," he'd answered, "especially when that very place was, for half a year, our home."

Her lips had brushed his forehead again, but even though she'd asked for no further explanation, Jorah had sensed she'd known there was more he'd left unsaid. He hadn't told her that it was not the Doom of Valyria that troubled him, but that which was certain to befall him in Pentos.

Would the paintings invoke this feeling if the halls they adorned had not once belonged to Khal Drogo? The gods only knew how Jorah had tried to persuade Dany that they could find other accommodations for their stay in the city, but she'd been fixed on it.

"Why should we not make use of Drogo's manse?" she had asked as they'd lain entwined in their narrow bunk onboard the ship, discussing her plan even as they'd sailed northward from Valyria. "My safety has always been paramount in our concerns about this city. Where should I be better protected than by the very guards my husband chose to--?"

" _I_ am your husband," Jorah had been unable to stop himself grinding out from between his clenched teeth.

The violet eyes had rolled. "My _first_ husband."

Jorah had snorted, the weight she'd placed on the word _first_ having given him not even a scrap of comfort. Even marriage--real, proper marriage, not the mummers' farce they'd played at in Qarth--had not reassured him that Drogo would not always be first in Dany's heart as he had been in her life, no matter how well she came to love him.

"Those men guarded me when I stayed at Drogo's manse as his betrothed," Dany had gone on to argue, in tones a deal calmer than the fire he'd expected from the dragon queen's mouth.

In truth, Jorah had not been sure he liked this gentleness any better than her fury; he could react to rage, and didn't she know he understood the intricacies of their situation and the limited choices afforded them as well as she? If not better. That did not mean he had to like them.

"They are in my employ now, and will guard me well. Better than Illyrio's men, friend though he has been to me. You know as well as I that it is said Illyrio never had a friend he would not sell for the right price. We have been so careful till now..."

"Careful?" Jorah had snorted. "Am I the only one of us who remembers Qarth, where all your _carefulness_ cost you two of your precious dragon's eggs?"

The look she'd given him had said she would have breathed fire at him if she could; Jorah doubted it would have burned like her words. "Need I remind you that one of those eggs _bought your life_?"

"Need you remind me that for a time you deemed it too high a price?"

Being but a bear, he had not been able to return fire for fire, but he did have claws which pierced the dragon's scales. Though the first sight of her blood had reminded him that Daenerys Targaryen was the last dragon; to wound such a beautiful and fearsome creature was shameful, indeed.

The problem being that he'd never been the sort of man who could look shamefaced. When he'd dishonored his house, he'd tucked tail and run rather than face his father, his aunt. Leaving Longclaw behind had been nearly like facing them. But now he had no Valyrian blade to lay at Dany's feet, and onboard a ship he could not run far enough to run.

Neither had Dany gone off to lick her wounds, for which he'd had to give her credit.

Indeed, she'd seemed scarcely to notice them as she'd drawn back her shoulders and said in tones which betrayed only the slightest hint of a tremor, "I made you my consort. You could have been some lady's lord, but you said it was enough to have the love of a queen."

"It is," Jorah had said.

 _Except when it wasn't_. Such as when she bid him take shelter behind the walls of the house that belonged to the man who had been her king. Who had never bowed to her, nor bent the knee…nor betrayed her.

Dany had sighed. "Sometimes, Jorah, I think we are much alike. At others, I do not understand you at all."

"You are no fool. And I am not so complicated as you make me out to be." He had climbed out of bed and gone--

"…into the House of the Undying," she was saying to Illyrio, though her eyes were on Jorah, large and luminous as they had been that night aboard _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ when he'd had to acknowledge his own shame mirrored back at him in her gaze, which he suspected was the reason she now painted the tale of his adventure in the warlocks' lair in the broad white strokes of knightly heroism, when it hadn't been that way at all. Not that Jorah did not appreciate her kindness.

When she had laid her hand over his where it rested on the ship's railing and said, "You're jealous of Khal Drogo," she had been kind.

Jorah's reply had been less so. "Why should not I be?" He'd pulled his hand from her touch--which he seldom did. "You have been jealous of Lynesse."

"There is a difference. Drogo is dead. Lynesse--"

"--sold me so she could be concubine to a man who would have made me his slave had I not fled his city. By her betrayal, she's as good as dead to me." Briefly, madly, he had bared his teeth in a grin at the irony of it. "If Lynesse came crawling back to me and begged me on her knees to forgive her, I would be deaf to her pleas and blind to her prostrations. But if Drogo had not been taken from you, still you would love him. Every day you see him in your son. As do I."

He'd squared his shoulders and dug his heels and the balls of his feet into the deck, bracing for the crack of Dany's hand across his cheek at the slight she would no doubt take on Rhaego's behalf. Instead, he'd felt her lips against his, like the petals of the roses that grew in their Valyrian gardens to which still clung the morning dampness, but which had been touched by the sun, or heated by the dragonfire that still lingered deep within the ancient earth.

"As you have been a better father to Rhaego than his true sire would have been, I have no doubt that you will also lay aside your jealousy to respect my wishes regarding Drogo's house."

She had uttered the words in the tones of a queen, putting an end to the discussion, but when she'd spoken again, it had been in the warm whisper of his wife in his ear.

"And someday you shall take me to your hall of pines, and I shall give you a son in whom every day I see _you_. And no more will you doubt that I look ahead at the living, and not behind at my ghosts."

What could he have done but submit when there were such promises to be had for his service? Home, an heir, _her_...Surely no man who had secured the hand of a queen would have contented himself with so little, though to Jorah, it was everything, and always had been. Surely no matter what Illyrio told her, Dany would see how little threat Jorah posed to her, compared to other men who would use her for power or wealth. That he had sacrificed the only thing he had wanted for love of her.

If only he'd been able to get a child on her, too, Jorah thought as he watched her sit at Drogo's table, feeding small, softened bites of meat and bread and cheese to Drogo's son who squirmed upon her lap, and then opened the front of her gown to give Drogo's babe suck at her breast. Though a child could also be one more thing Jorah stood to lose.

And, as his ears pricked suddenly with the sound of Illyrio's sonorous tones pronouncing the more familiar names and places of his homeland than the ones that had fallen from Dany's lips, it became apparent to Jorah that he had not contemplated just _how much_ he stood to lose.

"…took this Red Comet as a sign of _his_ kingship," he was saying as he cracked a shank of pheasant apart from the thigh in his great thick-fingered hands, the easier to tear the meat from the bone. "And it seems Stannis might be king, with Renly dead, and Robb Stark, along with his mother the Lady Catelyn, and nearly all their bannermen."

The fat man said it nonchalantly enough, chewing as he spoke, and sucking the juices of the bird off his fingers, as if he were oblivious to the significance such news held for Jorah, who did not for a moment believe that was truly the case.

Dany didn't miss it, her child crying out as she stood suddenly, dislodging him from her nipple. "My good-kin of House Mormont ride under the banners of Winterfell," she said, ignoring Rhaego's cries, signaling for his nurse, her alarmed eyes on Jorah all the while. "What fate befell them?"

Illyrio raised his goblet to his lips, clearly enjoying the vintage as well as the advantage he now had over the young queen. "Had I known Your Grace had married into one the houses that most staunchly opposed King Aerys, I may have thought to inquire after the _prince_ 's kin. As I did not--"

"How did Lady Stark and her son die?" Dany growled, somehow looming, despite her slight stature, the candlelight casting a strange three-headed shadow across the table as the nurse came behind her to pluck Rhaego from her arms. Jorah was grateful for her presence of mind, and her fury; he felt paralyzed, as he had been in the mud or shit-filled room House of the Undying where the crows feasted upon the fallen bear.

"Massacred by the Freys," Illyrio replied, "for some insult Robb did them. A trifling thing."

"House Frey shall be revisited tenfold with the suffering they heaped on the northmen," Dany said, "and if any of my husband's folk were among those murdered--"

"What news from the Wall?" Jorah found his voice, at last. He thought it seemed to come from far away, as Illyrio appeared from across the table. "My father, the Lord Commander--"

"I am afraid even in Westeros no one is much concerned about the Wall, when King Joffrey is murdered, along with his Hand, his grandsire Tywin Lannister."

Though Dany looked indignant about this shift in topic, Jorah was relieved for it, and found his head cleared, the crows scattered as if by the blast of a horn.

He drained his cup, and, as he refilled it, repeated, "Tywin Lannister dead? Who will my queen be giving a lordship for that noble deed? If the bastard is lucky enough to yet live."

"Tyrion Lannister was _tried_ for Joffrey's murder--"

"The Imp?" said Jorah. "Killed his own nephew?"

"I said he was tried for the murder, not that he is guilty of it. But why should he balk at killing his own nephew when he certainly killed his own lord father? And the Imp does live. In fact," Illyrio went on, his eyes on Dany and glimmering in a way that made Jorah reach for the pommel of his sword at his hip, "he was only lately here. Uder my protection."

"Under your…?" Dany blinked, appearing to reel as Jorah had a moment ago. He rose and took her gently by the shoulders, easing her back into her chair and placing her goblet in her hand. She took a fortifying drink but still spoke in a tremulous voice. "You harbored the Kingslayer's brother? But you were helping _my_ brother claim the throne!"

"The Kingslayer's brother is _not_ the Kingslayer. And, as it happens, our little Lord of Lannister supports House Targaryen. He travels with the king as we speak. Unless they are dead."

The magister's gaze flicked up to Jorah where he remained standing behind Dany with his hands on her shoulders, Illyrio's many-chinned face reddening as he no longer bothered to conceal his anger.

"Which they may well be, thanks to a certain letter from _Prince_ Jorah."

And there it was. Every fiber of Jorah's body ceased to thrum as he waited for Dany to react to what Illyrio had just said.

But it was not his own name that fell in tones of bewilderment from her lips. "King?"

Jorah's heart began to beat again. He had never considered that Dany would not believe an accusation of treachery made against him. Or that Illyrio would detract from this revelation with news which, as it sunk in, made Jorah's heart stop again.

The legs of Illyrio's chair screeched as he pushed back with all his girth from the table, followed by a groan of relief from the strained wood as he got to his feet. "Yes, the king. Aegon Targaryen, the Sixth of that name."

"Rhaegar's son?" Dany spluttered. "But--he was killed in infancy! Murdered, by Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides."

"Your nephew, Princess Daenerys, is very much alive. Or he was, a short time ago." And in case it escaped you, child..." Illyrio fixed Jorah with a twisted smile. "Your husband is a spy."


	23. Traitor's Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jorah no longer has any secrets from Daenerys.

"Do you think what Illyrio said is true?"

Staring up at the comet that glowed so faintly in the night sky as to be more pink than red now, more like a scar than the Bleeding Star, Dany had been silent for such a long time that Jorah had begun to think she'd forgotten he'd come out to the garden with her.

In truth, he'd never wanted so much to be forgotten by anyone as by Dany, now that she knew the truth of what had brought him into her service. Except, perhaps, when he'd wished Eddard Stark would forget that one of his bannermen had sold slaves…Or when he'd hoped Tregar Ormallen would forget that his chief concubine's husband owed him more money than he could possibly repay even as the poor Lord of Bear Island, much less as a sellsword.

Sighing, Jorah kicked at a stray pebble that had made its way out of a flowerbed onto the footpath of paving stones. Was love such a heinous crime that the list of people to whom his life was forfeit grew longer at every turn?

Not that Dany had passed judgment on him for the crimes he'd committed against her.

Yet.

Thus far, all her fury had been reserved for Illyrio Mopatis. Upon learning of his conspiracy with Lord Varys to make her a pawn in the Spider's game of thrones, she had summoned her guards with such a mad fire crackling in her violet eyes that Jorah had leapt to his feet, prepared to throw himself between the swords and the magister to stop the young queen from doing something brash that would imperil her life, never mind her bid for the Iron Throne. To his horror, the beautiful, girlish face that he loved so had seemed to shift into the visage he had never seen but oft imagined when the ravens had come on winter winds carrying whispered tales of northmen burned by the Mad King.

Daenerys, thank the gods old and new, was _not_ her father's daughter and heard the sense Jorah spoke to her. She ordered Illyrio to get out of her sight and not to set foot on her property again unless sent for; though he had but little to fear from a queen with one knight and fewer than a dozen household guards at her command, he had scurried like a fat rat from a sewer. A wise choice--for while a Targaryen, like a young dragon, might appear harmless, one never knew when it might find its fangs and fire.

Her silence on the matter of Jorah's role, however, was no more reassuring to him than her rage at Illyrio's, and he was unsure how to answer her question without incriminating himself unnecessarily.

"Illyrio said a lot of things," he replied. "Which do you doubt?"

"All of it." Dany paused, allowing Jorah's heart just enough time to soar with hope before she snapped its wings with a sigh and a few softly spoken words. "And none of it. Could my brother's son truly have been alive all these years?"

"It is certainly _possible_ that Lord Varys switched babes to protect Prince Aegon."

"Why did he not save the little princess, as well? Was not Rhaenys blood of the dragon as much as he?"

Dany folded her arms across her middle in a protective stance which Jorah had seen before, many times, during her pregnancy. He wanted, as he had on those other occasions, to take her in his embrace, to place his own hands over hers to assure her that no harm would befall her or her child or anyone she loved so long as he drew breath. But she did not turn to him as she had used to even then, and despite the truth that the gods and the law of the land made him her lord and husband, he felt that his hands were still bound as surely as they had been when she was _khaleesi_ to the most powerful horselord in all the world and Jorah a mere knight in her service. So he made no movement from where he stood behind her in the shadows, his hands clasped before him, and hoped that the sound of his voice could give her comfort enough, though he had no words to offer that were not crim.

"Princess Rhaenys was not the heir."

"Nor am I--so it would seem."

Jorah saw rather than heard another sigh as her shoulders rolled further forward, her head bowing. Dany, bowing. Daenerys, to whom every knee should bow, her hair crowned in silver by the moonlight. Her only doubt in coming to Illyrio for an army had been that he would withdraw his support of her house because she was a woman. Not once had it occurred to her, or to Jorah, that she was not the last Targaryen or next in line for the Iron Throne.

And Jorah could not even be relieved that this blow must be the greater by far than the other she had been dealt, and might make her forget what she had heard of his betrayal. For Dany's hope of the Seven Kingdoms had been his hope of Bear Island. Without her throne, he had no home.

And, given Varys' other plans, Jorah had no Dany, either.

"It is more likely that the boy whom Varys would now pass off as Aegon is an impostor," he said.

"The _boy_ , as you call him, is my senior by two years. Why would Varys and Illyrio want to marry me to him if he were _not_ truly Aegon?"

"To silence the skeptics with the support of the next Targaryen in line."

"Little wonder Illyrio was not best pleased to learn of my marriage."

Jorah gritted his teeth, and his knuckles cracked as he curled his fingers into fists. The septon in Valyria had pronounced him and Dany one heart, one soul, one flesh, but Jorah doubted very much that Varys and Illyrio cared a great deal about parting a husband and wife in twain, or feared the curse of doing so. If such men as them had a different husband in mind for Dany, then Jorah would be but an annoyance, easily disposed of. He was still a wanted man in the Seven Kingdoms, and could be put to death on those grounds alone as soon as ever he set foot on Westeros, without Illyrio or Varys having to dirty their hands at all.

But Jorah's ire at his own insignificance gave way to an idea of how he might turn the situation to his advantage. For though Dany was possessed of a far sweeter nature than any Targaryen had a right to be, she still had a dragon's pride, and no more enjoyed being ill-used than he. Perhaps a reminder of how little her wishes for her own happiness mattered to them would secure Jorah's place in her life, regardless of the circumstance that had brought him into it.

"I'm not a man to suffer fools," he said, "but I feel I rather owe my life to this bloody idiotic rescue mission, as I likely no longer stand between you and this Aegon, real or pretend."

"If he's dead," Dany said, "then it's _your_ fault for writing to Lord Varys that the _kos_ killed Rhaego and took me to the _dosh khaleen_ , and likely as not, they'll kill you anyway, out of revenge."

She turned around, facing him for the first time in the course of the conversation. Her hair, bathed in the red light of the torches that lined the gardens and reflected the red of her gown, lashed her shoulder, bringing to Jorah's mind the image of a whip of flame.

"I might even command them to do it."

"I can explain….Daenerys--"

He reached for her, but a mad sound, which he recognized belatedly as a laugh, flung itself from her lips and arrested his movement.

"You can _explain_ how you befriended a lonely, frightened young bride who'd never had a true friend in all her life, only to spy on her? By all means, _do_."

They had quarreled before, many times--almost more times than they had agreed, Jorah thought--but never had Dany achieved quite this tone of mockery. He tried to swallow the hot indignation that rose up like bile in his throat and to remember that he _was_ in the wrong and that he could not but expect her anger. But she sounded too like Viserys, too like a young girl who truly wanted an explanation and not a queen who dared him to give one.

"Only for a time," he said. "But I stopped, when I realized I loved you."

"And when was that?"

Her eyes were like swords in the moonlight, slicing through doublet and tunic, skin and sinew and breastbone to pierce his heart and lay bare every hidden secret. Jorah hung his head as she read the truth as easily as if it had been written there in the common tongue. He was not ashamed that she knew that it had been the threat of losing her that had made him recognize that he loved her, but that he had not known her worth from the start, as all true knights loved their ladies in the songs.

"It doesn't matter," she said, her voice dropping to a lower, but no less dangerous pitch, trembling with the controlled rage that roiled like water about to break free of a bubbling pot. "What matters is that you are no better than Jaqho and Pono and the other _kos_ who would have thrown Rhaego to the dogs. You are no better than Gregor Clegane who bashed an infant boy's head against a wall until he died, or Amory Lorch who stabbed Rhaenys fifty times, or the Usurper Robert Baratheon, who--

"--were only playing the game of thrones."

Jorah was willing enough to take responsibility for his crimes against her, but he was not about to stand by and let her make him the whipping boy for all those who _would have_ wounded her, or for those who had committed atrocities against members of her house. Certainly he wouldn't let her assign worse sins to him than those of which he was guilty.

She would sin, too; all the greater as queen.

"You win or you die, Daenerys, and your children, too."

She looked shaken at this, and Jorah realized that at some point he had taken her by the shoulders and actually given her a shake. He did not let release her, nor even relax his hold on her, for fear she would turn her back on him again, or flee; though he did draw a drew a deep calming breath before he went on, speaking in low, deliberate tones.

"If you would be queen, it will mean killing Robert's children--the Princess Myrcella and the little King Tommen, and Stannis' daughter--and the babes of any other rivals who would one day make war on Rhaego's claim--"

"STOP IT!"

Dany's hands flew up like thin, pale dragon's wings to clap over her ears; Jorah wished he could do the same as his own rang with her shriek echoing off the garden walls, but instead he moved his hands from her shoulders to catch her wrists.

"I won't hear this, I won't!" she cried, struggling against him as he tried to pry her hands from her ears. "Let me go!"

Jorah didn't dare, lest the momentum of her struggle throw her off-balance and lead her to fall, but suddenly she went still and rigid in his grasp.

"Let. Me. Go. _Ser_."

It was not the fire in her eyes, or her command, or even the growl in which she had spoken it that made Jorah's fingers uncurl from around her wrists and his feet stumble backward from her.

 _Ser_ , she'd called him. His own wife. Not once since they wed had Dany addressed him by his old title. Not even in anger.

His blood pounded in his head at the same tempo as her breasts, pale as death or ice, heaved above the blood red Myrish lace of her bodice, so that her voice seemed a disembodied, far-off thing.

"This is _my_ game of thrones you speak of, and I do not play it by the rules by which your Usurper King played his."

"I had no great love for Robert. I never served--"

"No. You never served anyone but yourself. Which makes you more despicable than any of these players."

Her eyes darted away as though she could not bear to look at him, and she stepped around him to go back to the house. Jorah turned, but did not move to follow, nor did he reach to stop her from going, though his fingers twitched to catch her by the arm.

"I played no game," he called after her. "I only wanted to go home."

The whisper of silk as she turned back was followed by a tearing sound as the train of her gown caught on a low growing rose bush that had not received proper attention from a gardener and spilled out onto the footpath. Even that image was not so cutting as her voice.

"And to buy your lordship and your poor hall of timber on your frozen island, you sold my life, and the life of my child…"

Her voice choked, and for an instant the torchlight gleamed in her eyes as if they had welled with tears, but then a blink--hers or his, he couldn't be sure which--and they were only luminescent Targaryen once more, and had command of her voice as well.

"Seven gods, Jorah! You've loved Rhaego as your own son. You loved me, and made me love you in return, and you _married me_ , all the while knowing what you'd done. Yes, _my prince_ , do explain that to me, because I cannot understand how I could love a man capable of such treachery and wickedness."

"You loved Khal Drogo."

Dany winced. It wasn't a fair stroke, Jorah knew, but she had struck below the belt herself. The small stones of the garden path crunched beneath his boots as he strode toward her. "He slaughtered suckling babes and little children at play. He raped their mothers. He--"

"--is dead. As you soon may be. Sooner than you might think, if you continue on this course."

Jorah knelt. He saw Dany's chest swell beneath the red lace in her moment of triumph, only for her to look rather crestfallen as he reached out to free her silken train from the rosebush rather than bend his gaze submissively.

"You have always known exactly who I am," he said as he slowly stood again so that he loomed over her. "That I was exiled, stripped of my lands, my title, my sword, sentenced to death because I sold men's lives to pay for my own. I may not have enumerated on _all_ my sins, but I did tell you there was nothing I would not do for love. And you married me anyway, knowing full well I was no white knight. So do not lie to yourself, Daenerys Targaryen, that you were an innocent girl taken in by a scoundrel who played you false."

"But you are. You have."

Now there was no question that her voice trembled or her eyes filled with tears, though the picture she painted was far from weak, wreathed in flame as she was with the torch burning behind her.

"You persuaded me not to come to Pentos where Illyrio would reveal your treachery, and when you saw that I would not be dissuaded, you made me your wife so that I would be bound to you when I learned it. I may have made myself blind to your other faults, but I truly was in this."

She blinked, but rather than push the tears back, the act made them fall. Jorah reached out to brush them away with the backs of his fingers; thank the gods, she did not flinch from his touch.

"I finally had your love," he murmured. "I couldn't bear the thought that I might lose you."

But when he cupped her face in his hands, she drew back her shoulders and raised her chin in defiance.

"You married me to secure me, but even the bonds of marriage can be broken. As you well know."

Jorah's hands fell to his sides, the tips of his fingers leaden. "You…wish to dissolve our union?"

He had thought of many ways she might punish him, most of them ending his life. Not once had he thought she would leave him. A fate far worse than death--and Dany knew it. Surely she could not be so cruel as Lynesse had been, this sweet girl who wanted to play the game of thrones without hurting the innocent.

Though innocent was the very last word anyone would use to describe Jorah Mormont.

Dany's hesitation, at least, told him she didn't know what she was going to do with him or their marriage.

It was a small comfort, however.

For she said in a tone that bespoke all the sadness in the world rested upon her slender shoulders, "I _wish_ that you truly were the man I thought you were."


	24. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany and Jorah find themselves apart, but unexpectedly, not alone.

"'Tis a cold wind that blows, my queen."   
  
The voice rumbled low behind Dany as she stood on the forecastle of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_. It crept gently into her awareness like the roll of distant thunder in the iron grey sky, no more welcome than the herald of the approaching storm. Not least of all because, at first, she'd imagined the voice was _his_.   
  
"Winter is coming," she replied, without turning around to address Captain Groleo. "Or so they say in the north of Westeros."  
  
"And Your Grace has no cloak."  
  
She did have--folded up at the bottom of a trunk in her cabin belowdecks. A very fine one, black and green velvet trimmed with bear fur, the bride's cloak Jorah had placed about her shoulders on their wedding day. The bi-colored field was emblazoned with a three-headed dragon with the body of a bear, the new sigil she had adopted to represent their joined Houses and because they had both seen the creature in dreams and visions. For the first time since Jorah left Pentos, it occurred to her she would have to go back to using the traditional sigil of House Targaryen now.   
  
If ever she should need a sigil.   
  
A heaviness pressed down on Dany's shoulders to which she'd grown so accustomed of late that she did not immediately recognize as being a physical weight; Groleo had draped his own oilskin sea cloak about her shoulders. She'd come up here to find respite from her cramped quarters, which she shared with Rhaego and his nurse, but she hadn't realized till the cloak enveloped her from chin to toe, completely shutting out the bite of the wind, that what she had truly sought was shelter. Feeling as if she had ducked beneath the flap of her old tent in the _khalasar_ and nestled down into her comfortable sleeping silks and furs, she sighed.   
  
"I was just below," Groleo said, shuffling to stand beside her. "Your cabin was blessedly silent, for once. Does that mean Prince Rhaego at last suckled?"  
  
Dany was thankful to have the captain's cloak for more than protection against the cold when, as if in response to the question, her engorged breasts became painfully heavy. Beneath the oilskin, she discretely massaged them, but the stimulation was enough to make them leak. She gritted her teeth. They were not a week out of Pentos, and in all that time Rhaego had refused to give suck. Soon she would run out of fresh smallclothes to change into when the old became too sodden to continue wearing, the smell of her own soured milk on her clothing and bed linens took away _her_ appetite, and, worst of all, Rhaego's cries no longer evoked her sympathy, but made her wish to silence him in whatever way was necessary, since he refused to satisfy himself at her breast. Which would have made her the worst sort of hypocrite, after she'd accused Jorah of being callus toward innocent babes.  
  
"No," she said aloud; she would not think of Jorah. She'd come up here as much to avoid the reminder of him as the crying, which was responsible for the ache that raged behind her eyes. "Still the prince would not take my breast. He must have exhausted himself with his crying and thrashing."  
  
"You look in need of a good long sleep yourself," said Groleo. "My bunk is yours, should you require it, my queen."  
  
"Thank you, Captain. That is most chivalrous of you."   
  
The milk in her shift had soaked through to the blouse she wore beneath her Westerosi-style kirtle, and the garment felt as heavy as it dwasid cold in the wind as she hunched further beneath Groleo's oilskin.   
  
"Holding Rhaego is like wrestling a dragon," she said. "He's so strong. You wouldn't think it to look at those spindly arms and legs, but I can hardly free myself from his grasp. His fingers are like claws. And he bites." She sighed, and laid her head on her arms propped on the railing and overlooked the dark, churning waves. "But he will not suck. Stubborn, like his father Khal Drogo."  
  
 _And his stepfather._   
  
"And Dothraki are not known for their love of the sea, Your Grace. The child may only be greensick."  
  
Groleo spoke with no conviction, only kindness. He knew as well as she that Rhaego had not been ill on any of their previous voyages, from Qarth to Valyria or from Valyria to Pentos, that he took after his mother, Daenerys Stormborn, and not Khal Drogo who feared the poison waters. All the same, she was grateful that Groleo had not pointed out to her, as the nurse had, that when Rhaego had become fractious before, he'd found comfort in Jorah's arms--even when they had held the child but loosely as he lay in the enchanted sleep brought on by the warlocks' magic in the House of the Undying.   
  
"Prince Rhaego misses his father," the nurse had said, and Dany unleashed her rage like flame from a dragon's mouth.   
  
"Ser Jorah Mormont was _not_ the father of my son. Perhaps Rhaego _does_ miss him, but he is young, and soon enough will forget he ever knew a knight of that name. And you had best do the same, for if you speak another word to me of the traitor, especially of his being Rhaego's father, I shall have your tongue."  
  
The nurse had cringed before Dany and stammered that she would forget, and then became the victim of Rhaego's clawlike grasping hands flailing limbs when Dany handed him over to come above just now.   
  
She rubbed her temples and raised her head, turning to look at Groleo. "How long till we reach Valyria?"  
  
"A fortnight, at least. Perhaps three weeks. The wind may blow cold, Your Grace, but it does blow. For now."  
  
"My milk may well have dried up by then," said Dany, "if he continues not to suck."  
  
"But--the lad has teeth?"  
  
"A few."  
  
"He will take scraps of food?"  
  
"He refuses everything. And even if he did not, he is yet too young to be weaned. He needs mother's milk for another year or more."   
  
Her lips curled slightly at the irony; prior to leaving Valyria, she'd attempted to wean Rhaego so that she might conceive Jorah's child. But though Rhaego had shown interest in eating bits of meat and soft cheese and milk-soaked bread, he'd exhibited no less interest in her breast, and her womb had not opened to Jorah's seed.   
  
Would it have been better if she _had_ become pregnant by him? Would he still have left her? Would she have despised having a traitor's child growing in her belly and drunk moon tea to rid herself of it?   
  
Or would she still have wanted it? Wanted _him_? To put his hand upon her swollen belly and feel the stir of new life within he? To hold her as she brought forth the babe with blood and pain as he had when she delivered Rhaego?   
  
She was grateful when Groleo interrupted this dangerous and maddening line of thought. "There are any number of islands between here and Valyria where we could make port, Your Grace, and find the prince a wet nurse."  
  
"We may have to. I have not kept my son safe this long only to have him starve."  
  
The wind kicked up, snapping the cloak. To Dany, the sound was like the crack of a hand across her cheek, which the wind had made as raw as a slap.   
  
_She_ had not always kept Rhaego safe. It had been _her_ carelessness, _her_ failure to heed Jorah's caution, that had provided Pyatt Pree the opportunity to kidnap her son.   
  
And she had not paid the ransom, for she'd been unwilling to trade one of her dragon's eggs for the life of her living child.   
  
But she had been willing enough to trade Jorah's. And how was that any different from him being willing to trade her life for his home?   
  
_No_. Jorah had sworn to serve her, to obey her, to die for her, if she required it. She had not asked him to do anything a knight should not do. And if he had died in the House of the Undying, well, he should have been glad of an honorable death, instead of the traitor's execution he deserved.   
  
She thought of the single dragon's egg that remained to her, tucked in its casket belowdecks, and wished for its comforting weight cradled in her arms like the rounded swell of her belly when she'd been pregnant with Rhaego.   
  
"And who will keep _you_ safe, my queen?" asked Groleo.  
  
He spoke the question gently, like a father, like Jorah had spoken to her when she was a frightened new _khaleesi_ , and she felt his fingers ruffle her hair. Or it might have been the wind. It was certainly the cut of the wind that made her eyes water.   
  
Dany drew herself up to full height, letting the heavy oilskin cloak slide off her shoulders, and lifted her chin. "I am the blood of the dragon. A dragon is not safe, nor can it be kept so."  
  
Groleo stepped back from her, looking at her a little askance, whether in awe of her queenliness or because he thought she was mad, Dany could not say.   
  
"Ser Jorah must have agreed, or he would have accompanied you on pain of death." He knelt to pick up his cloak, but did not take his eyes off her face. "Feel free to take my tongue if it wags too freely, Your Grace, but your eyes are stormy as the sky. I have only seen you look this way once before, when your lord husband lay ill. I stood witness at your wedding, where the Seven Gods of Westeros bound you to him flesh, heart, and soul. Now you are like a half, rent asunder. Where is your other part? And who is to receive the curse for parting lovers in twain, as the Westerosi vows say?"  
  
As he stood, the captain's dark eyes gleamed with the flash of a sheet of lightning across the sky behind Dany, followed closely by a long, slow roll of thunder.  
  
"Jorah," she replied, hear heartbeat quickening. "Jorah himself has come between us."   
  
She had intended for him to accompany her to Valyria--at least until she could decide what was to be done with him--but he had refused. He'd mounted the horse Khal Drogo had given him for stopping the wine merchant in the western market from poisoning he; she wondered how much longer Jorah would have lasted than the assassin, running naked and bound behind her silver had Drogo known that the attempt on her life had been possible because _he_ had informed on her. His saddlebags had been packed with a few provisions for a journey, and he was well-weaponed, including the dragonglass knife she'd given him for their wedding, but clad in sturdy traveling clothes and none of his finery, looking very much as he had when he had ridden, a poor exile, with the _khalasar_. And he had gone.   
  
"Though I know not whence." She turned again to look out over the railing, westward. " You know he is a wanted man in the Seven Kingdoms?"  
  
"I had a little of his story from Xaro Xhoan Daxos, aye."  
  
"Jorah's liege-lord is dead, and the country lies all confused by the war. It may be that he went back to test his fate there."   
  
She thought of the vision he'd had in the House of the Undying, of an old great bear he thought must be his father, eaten by crows, and of the troubling news Illyrio had given them of the massacre of Robb Stark's bannermen. She hadn't thought of it since then, Jorah's betrayal and the possibility that Rhaegar's son lived to take her place in line for the throne having taken precedence in her thoughts--though it must have weighed heavily on Jorah. In spite of his treachery, she grieved his loss, and regretted not having she opened her arms to comfort him in his hour of need.   
  
"All he ever wanted was home."  
  
But no sooner had the words left her mouth, than her anger flared. Wherever _she_ was, Jorah had said, he was home.   
  
Another of his lies.   
  
It was well that he had gone, so her child would not grow to remember a man like that.   
  
If only she could forget, too.  
  
~*~  
"'nother pint, m'lord?"   
  
"I'm no lord," Jorah muttered, not bothering to look up from the dregs of piss-poor beer and lemon pips at the bottom of his flagon. "Once I was, but no longer. I was a prince, too. Wed to a queen with no kingdom…"  
  
His words trailed off into a heavy sigh.   
  
"'nother pint?" came the question a second time, in almost an identical tone as before, but pitched slightly higher.   
  
It caught Jorah's attention. He dragged his gaze upward and blinked back bleariness to note the swarthy barmaid gawking at him, her thick black eyebrows arched high on her forehead. The words had been heavily accented, he realized, belatedly; likely she had little more of the common tongue of Westeros than _'nother pint_ , and here he was, babbling to her about his joke of a love life.   
  
And apparently someone else had heard it; as he nudged the flagon across the rough-hewn counter and reminded her in the Valyrian dialect spoken in Qohor to bring more lemon, he heard the rattle of laughter coming from somewhere behind--and below--his stool. He twisted round, not at first seeing the person who found him such a source of amusement.  
  
"Well, well, well," came a smarmy voice just as Jorah's eyes locked on a boy pushing his way through the tavern crowd. "My dear Not-lord Jorah Mormont."   
  
Even if Jorah had not sat on a high stool, he'd have been looking down into the ugliest face that had peered up into his. Which didn't belong to a boy, but to a bandy-legged half-grown man, a dwarf with a jutting forehead and misshapen pink flesh where a nose ought to have perched, and mismatched eyes, one of which was so green that, combined with his mop of pale golden hair, could only belong to--  
  
"The little lordling of Lannister," Jorah said, his gaze leaving the dwarf to scan the tavern for the supposed Targaryen with whom Illyrio Mopatis claimed the Imp was traveling.   
  
He saw no one near Dany's age but the barmaids, nor any young men silver of hair and violet of eye--though he supposed there was a chance Aegon--if he was, indeed, Prince Rhaegar's son--had taken after his Martell mother. However, the place seemed to be filled primarily with Qohorik locals or merchants on their way to and from the western market of Vaes Dothrak. Perhaps someone had news of the _khalasars_.   
  
The Imp scowled as, whether from the slight or the effort of clambering up onto the stool beside Jorah, he didn't know.   
  
"If you're going to use pejoratives," the Imp said, "I'd just as soon _Imp_ , thank you. It at least sounds sinister instead of silly. Or feel free to call me by my right name. I do have one, you know. It's Tyrion."  
  
Jorah knew. But he felt no need to call the Imp anything at all. "How do you know me?"  
  
"I never forget the face of a man who comes to a draw against my brother in a tourney. There have been so few."  
  
The barmaid returned with Jorah's beer and a small pewter dish containing wedges of lemon. He plucked one out and squeezed its juice into the tankard whose contents really were little darker than piss.   
  
"I suppose that's likely enough," he said, "though you'd have been an even littler lordling then than you are now, ten years ago."  
  
Tyrion stretched out an unexpectedly long finger and poked one of the bears embroidered in black on the sleeve of Jorah's green tunic. "Also, you _bear_ a striking resemblance to your lord father." He smirked, briefly, at his own joke, but then said, "Who I saw, oh, a few months shy of…oh, two years ago, I think?"  
  
Jorah sloshed beer over the counter as he slammed his flagon down. He grabbed Tyrion by the collar of his doublet, pulling him nearly off his stool as all his suspicions about the Imp and the possible Targaryen were pushed from his mind as his thoughts focused into one question: "What do you know of my father?"  
  
"That he's Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, quite a big fellow, rather gruff--must be where you get your manners--affectionately termed the Old Bear, likes to break his fast with beer and lemon--" The insolently gleaming mismatched eyes darted sideways to the bar.   
  
Jorah's fist tightened its hold on the Imp's collar, pulling them almost forehead to bulging forehead. "Does he live?"   
  
Tyrion coughed. "Can't tell…if…choke me.."  
  
Reluctantly, Jorah released Tyrion, who continued to cough until Jorah thrust his own beer at him. The Imp drained it, and only when he he'd signaled to the barmaid to bring another flagon for each of them, did he return to the conversation at hand, looking up at Jorah with eyes which, though unsettling, held not a trace of the earlier gleaming insolence expected from members of the house that shat gold.   
  
"We've had little word down in King's Landing from the Wall, and that a lot of fantastical nonsense about wights and Others. Illyrio Mopatis says Stannis Baratheon's there with a Priestess of Asshai, which seems rather more unbelievable than wights and Others." His voice softened. "But I truly hope so, ser. The Lord Commander's a good man."  
  
The mention of wights and Others wasn't terribly reassuring to Jorah; he'd seen them in the House of the Undying, too--though, ridden down by Rhaego on his fearsome mount, the three-headed dragon with a bear's body. Or perhaps that just made the rumors all the more absurd. At least Tyrion hadn't said anything about crows.   
  
With a snort, Jorah took up his flagon. "What do you know of good men, _kinslayer_?"  
  
 _That_ brought the Lannister insolence back into the Imp's eyes. "I know that if I'd had the fortune of being born Jeor Mormont's cub, he'd never have given me reason to dream of killing him."  
  
Jorah's jaw tightened as he drove his fingernail into one of the lemon wedges to dig out a pip, doing his best to rein in his rising temper and avoid making a scene. There could be no dignity in hitting a dwarf, as he was sorely tempted to do.   
  
"Obviously you didn't spend enough time with that bloody raven." What _had_ the Imp been doing at the Wall, anyway?   
  
"Or of dishonoring him," the Imp went on, as if Jorah had not interrupted him. "Was being a slaver not shame enough for Jeor? Did you think he'd be _proud_ to know his son spied on the little Targaryen princess--?"  
  
"Daenerys Targaryen is the _queen_ , and she is my _wife_!" Jorah roared, driving his fist so hard into Tyrion's face that the Imp flew backward off his stool, cracking his head against the edge of the neighboring seat on his way to the floor.   
  
No dignity in hitting a dwarf, perhaps, but at the moment Jorah valued satisfaction more. Not that it was _quite_ as satisfying as it would have been to throw his fist into Illyrio's fat face, but nearly three weeks now had passed since Dany had the truth of him, and his fingers had been twitching to strike out at the first person who gave him reason.   
  
Though Jorah had to give the Imp his due, Tyrion picked himself up quicker than many a bigger man who'd been dealt such a blow. Then again, if his tongue wagged like that all the time, he was probably accustomed to that method of being silenced.   
  
So accustomed, apparently, that it didn't silence him for very long at all.  
  
Tyrion rubbed his jaw and spat out a glob of blood--it might have been a tooth, as it skittered across the planks of the floor--and drawled, "Don't let my sweet sister hear the bit about there being another queen. She was quite the green-eyed monster when Joff made Margaery Tyrell his. Not that _that_ marriage survived all seventy-seven course of the feast."   
  
"Illyrio says _you_ were the one we have to thank for that."  
  
"I was tried, and found guilty, of the crime," Tyrion replied, fixing Jorah with his strange, mismatched stare. "Make of that what you will. But just before my face became very intimately acquainted with your fist, did you tell me you actually _married_ Daenerys Targaryen? I overheard you say something of a sort to the wench there, but I assumed it was just drunken babble."  
  
"Why, that depends, Imp."  
  
"On?"  
  
Jorah swigged his beer. "Whether you're in the company of a lad who styles himself Aegon Targaryen."   
  
When Tyrion almost fell off his stool again, so taken aback he was by this revelation, Jorah smirked into his flagon. Briefly. Then he realized he shouldn't be quite so pleased to have the upper hand on the Imp. Or should he? He was starting to get the feeling that while the Imp was short on stature, he'd perhaps gotten the lion's share of Lord Tywin's brains.   
  
"Did Illyrio send you after us?"  
  
"Something like that. He's here, then?"  
  
"Griff? No, he and Barristan Selmy--"  
  
"Barristan the Bold? Of the Kingsguard?"  
  
" _Formerly_ of the Kingsguard."  
  
Jorah nearly choked on his beer, and not because it was bad beer. "There's no such thing as a former Kingsguard. They take the White for life, just as the Night's Watch the Black."  
  
"One of King Joff the First's many firsts," said Tyrion. "Anyway, they rode off to Vaes Dothrak--"  
  
"To rescue Daenerys from the _dosh khaleen_." Jorah couldn't stop his lips quirking upward at that.   
  
" _Hmm_. While I stayed behind to find out if Qohor's where the whores go. It does _sound_ like it, doesn't it? But it's not." He sighed and stared for a moment into his flagon, but then turned to Jorah. "I thought it was a bloody stupid idea even if Daenerys had been there, but as your smirk clearly says she's _not_ , I'm doubly glad I didn't go along to visit the city of the horselords. Though I'm sure it's quite a charming place. Smells nice?"  
  
Jorah snorted and flagged the barmaid for more beer for both of them. It was the least he could do after costing the Imp a tooth.   
  
He regretted it instantly when Tyrion goggled up at him with this unsettling eyes and said, "I must say I'm astonished."  
  
"That a poor exile knight could win the love of a queen?" Jorah's fingers clenched again, hard, around the handle of his tankard.   
  
Tyrion shook his head as he swallowed, wincing a little--no doubt from the acrid beer washing over the raw hole in his mouth where his tooth had been. "No, because I remember you convinced that sweet little Hightower thing to marry you, too. You _do_ like them young, don't you, Ser Jorah?"   
  
When Jorah glowered, the Imp raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.   
  
"I have a lovely and quite young wife myself. Did you ever have occasion to meet Ned Stark's eldest daughter, Sansa?"  
  
"When she was in swaddling clothes," Jorah heard himself say, not fully grasping the meaning of all this. Had Westeros gone utterly mad during his exile, that the daughters of high lords were married to the dwarf sons of their fathers' enemies? Or perhaps that was young Sansa's punishment for being the daughter of a traitor. He'd still not had the full story of _that_. If only the Imp's tongue would wag with _useful_ information.   
  
"No, Ser Bear," Tyrion was saying, "what astonishes me about you--and by astonished I of course mean mean _impresses me_ greatly--is that a man who was stupid enough to sell a couple of poachers into slavery could possibly be clever enough to pull the wool over the Spider's eyes. Illyrio said there was a letter from Qarth or someplace? Must have been a damned good one."  
  
"It was a simple enough matter to send a raven to Varys informing him Drogo's kos had killed Daenerys' babe and taken her to the _dosh khaleen_ , as they do the wives of all dead _khals_. As far as he knew, I had nothing to gain by lying to him. I wanted my pardon and my lordship."  
  
"Quite the change of heart, after it was you who informed Varys that Daenerys was with child in the first place." His eyes glinted shrewdly. "I assume she didn't know about _that_ when you married her?"  
  
Jorah hung his head. "She does now."  
  
"Hence your being here, instead of…wherever she is?"  
  
"She didn't banish me," Jorah sharply realizing, almost too late, that the Imp was fishing for information.   
  
Not from her house, anyway--or rather, Drogo's house in Pentos. Only from her bed. And while he'd been relieved that she had not wanted to be entirely shot of him at once, he had _not_ been content to play the role of a glorified nursemaid to his wife's son while his wife rejected him.   
  
It had, perhaps, been a mistake to voice this thought aloud.   
  
"If you are too angry at present to treat me as a husband," he had said, "then at least allow me to serve as your councilor, as I once did."  
  
"And what would your advice be, ser?" she'd shot back, her eyes ablaze. "Not to put you aside and marry Aegon?"  
  
That had singed. "Is that the course you have decided on, Daenerys?"  
  
" _Your Grace_. And I have decided that we shall return to Valyria, for in this city I have neither friend nor ally."  
  
"You have _me_."   
  
He'd reached out for her, but she had stepped back from him, crossing her arms over her chest.   
  
"As I have Illyrio Mopatis?"  
  
And though her points had been fair, to be expected, even, considering her position, and his betrayal, her stubbornness and pride had tweaked his own, and before he had thought he'd declared, "I'll not go back to Valyria. When I sail again, it shall be for the Seven Kingdoms."  
  
"If you go to the Seven Kingdoms without me, you will not live there long."  
  
"Believe me, _Your Grace_ ," he'd said, through his teeth, "I haven't the least intention of going except at your side, as your consort."  
  
Which, as the Imp had pointed out, brought him here, on this mad quest to find the Dothraki and win her an army. He tossed a few coppers on the counter to pay for their drinks, then got up from his stool and dragged Tyrion once more off his by the back of his cloak.   
  
"You'll find out where the queen is, Imp, for I'll be taking you to her."   
  
If Tyrion was nonplussed at being dragged through a tavern by a big northern knight, nothing in his demeanor showed it. "Was that your plan, then? Ride to Qohor and find a dwarf to win back your lady fair?"  
  
"I'm sure she'll find a Lannister useful, indeed," Jorah replied, dragging the Imp through a mud puddle. Or it might have been horse piss and shit. So much the better.   
  
When they reached the stable, Jorah spied a small horse saddled with a contraption that could only have been made for the Imp. He released Tyrion, and ordered him to mount up while he saw to his own horse.  
  
"I can't see _how_ Daenerys would find me useful," said the Imp as he clambered up onto a bale of hay and awkwardly swung his leg over his saddle. When he was situated, Jorah bound the Imp's hands to the pommel, Tyrion talking on all the while. "My sister's promised lands and a lordship to whomever brings her my head, so she might well grant you a pardon as well. Provided she's forgotten you once prevailed over sweet Jaime in a tourney."   
  
He grinned, so Jorah supposed that he must be making a joke; he pulled the rope tighter around the Imp's wrists.   
  
There was nothing joking in Tyrion's tone or expression as he said, "Do you think she'll extend that much generosity to Daenerys?"  
  
This gave Jorah pause. The Imp spoke sense--or was this one of his tricks? But what _did_ Jorah intend Dany to do with this particular Lannister?   
  
Still, he couldn't lose face in front of the likes of the Imp. "I don't want any of Cersei's boons," he said. "I only want Daenerys. It might be your brother she'd rather have--"  
  
"Doesn't every woman?"  
  
"--but I'll wager she'll be nearly as happy to watch the Kingslayer's brother burn."  
  
The threat didn't appear to have the intimidating effect on the Imp that Jorah hoped. "This seems rather a half-baked plan," he said as Jorah swung up into his own saddle and, taking the reins of both horses, guided them out into the innyard. "Perhaps you're not so clever after all. Perhaps it was only a stroke of luck that you mislead Varys--"  
  
Jorah reined in and turned in his saddle, hand raised to cuff the Imp again. But no sooner had he urged the horses back into motion, than Tyrion's tongue started working again, too.  
  
"Your romanticism should be in a song, ser. Or perhaps it already is."   
  
He hummed a few lines of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ , but the song died on his swollen lips when Jorah glowered at him.   
  
"I take it you've heard that one? You know if you really want your maiden fair, you're going to have to win her a throne."


	25. Improvisation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jorah's new traveling companion gives his journey a little direction.

"We rode south all day," said Tyrion Lannister, trundling into the forest clearing, his stubby arms loaded with twigs and dried leaves. "I do believe that due south of Qohor lies… _Valyria_."  
  
"So does Sothoryos, if you keep going." Jorah dragged his knife a little more deliberately through the limp rabbit he was skinning for their supper and tried not to take heed of the Imp's mismatched eyes gleaming weirdly as he added the kindling to the campfire.  
  
"Oh, it's to the southern continent we go, then? Delightful. I've always yearned to see the Basilisk Isles…and the Isle of Toads…Or perhaps the Isle of Tears better suits your mood, as Queen Daenerys' spurned lover?"  
  
" _Husband_ ," Jorah gritted out through clinched teeth. "I'm Queen Daenerys' husband."  
  
The bloody blade in his hand beckoned to him, but he stayed himself from doing anything brash. The Imp would hardly be of use to Dany if he couldn't speak, and, truth be told, Jorah actually found the incessant prattle during the day's ride a blessed distraction from his own thoughts, which had tormented him throughout his solitary ride from Pentos to Qohor. At least, it had been a change to be irked with someone other than himself.  
  
"What's the point of this?" Jorah asked, tearing the rabbit's pelt off the meat. "Apart from showing off that your lord father could afford a competent geography tutor?"  
  
Hands on his knees, Tyrion pushed himself to stand upright, then, approaching Jorah, clasped them together behind his back in a stance that would have been lordly if his body weren't proportioned like that of a toddling child--thought which made Jorah's thoughts turn to the toddler who was dear enough to be his own; he closed his eyes, as if that would make Rhaego's face vanish from his memory.  
  
"No point, ser," Tyrion said, "other than idle curiosity as to where you've made up your mind to take me, and what you intend to do with me when you get there."  
  
He bent again, reaching out as if for one of the knives that lay beside Jorah on the fallen log where he sat cleaning the game. Jorah pinned Tyrion with his stare.  
  
"Are you asking me to bind your hands again, Imp?"  
  
Tyrion withdrew his hand, his mouth curling slowly in a half-grin. "I swear on my honor as a Lannister, I shall give you no reason to regret untying me. I'll fetch more firewood, if you like."  
  
"I hear Lannisters have shit for honor."  
  
"And gold for shit." Tyrion's bulging brow furrowed. "No, wait, that was only my lord father, and as it happened, he only shat shit. Bugger."  
  
Jorah couldn't help snorting at that as he set to work on the other rabbit. He didn't actually second-guess his decision to restore Tyrion the use of his hands so he could make himself useful setting up camp. A dwarf as clever as this one had so far indicated himself to be couldn't possibly be foolish enough to attempt an escape into the forest by night, and though the Imp had by all accounts including his own committed patricide, Jorah had spent nights in the forests back home with bears and wasn't worried overmuch for the safety of his person--so long as he took care to avoid Lord Tywin's mistake of lowering his breeches and squatting while the Imp skulked about armed with a crossbow.  
  
"Don't tell me you left the winesinks and brothels of Qohor behind with no destination in view," said Tyrion.  
  
"I haven't told you anything so far." Except for the entire saga of his fleeing the _khalasar_ with Dany up to their recent parting. "What makes you think I'd begin now?"  
  
But the Imp had the way of it: Jorah _had_ struck out from Qohor with no clearer plan than when he'd left Pentos. Tyrion was also correct in that they'd ridden in a more or less southerly direction, though Jorah was tempted to repeat the nonsense Quaithe had talked about going south to go north, just to perplex the Imp. If only he didn't find it so bloody confusing himself.  
  
Soon, he would have to make the decision to veer eastward to Vaes Dothrak, or to continue on south to Dany. If they rode hard--which Jorah was not at all sure Tyrion could do, though he was not above trussing the little man up on the back of his own mount like so much baggage--they had a chance of arriving in Valyria at nearly the same time as _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ completed her meandering voyage around the Stepstones in the Narrow Sea. Assuming, of course, that the ship was not delayed by autumn storms. Or, worse, fallen upon by the pirates or slavers that plagued the western shores of Essos. Though Jorah never had been a praying man, he silently beseeched any gods old or new, on this continent or any other, that her sailing would be as smooth as theirs had been from Qarth.  
  
"From my view--" Tyrion began, and Jorah, relieved to be drawn away from that disturbing line of thought, interrupted him.  
  
"Can't be a very good view, considering your height."  
  
"I was going to follow that with _it stands to reason_ , but anticipating your inevitable jest that a dwarf's reason can't stand very high, I'll skip straight to the part where I tell you that the _obvious_ solution to your little problem is to determine the best way to win back your lady wife, and then go on from there."  
  
Jorah stood, skinned rabbits in hand, and towered over the dwarf. While he welcomed the distraction provided by conversation, he little appreciated being condescended to by the likes of Tywin Lannister's accursed wretch of a son.  
  
"And what do you consider the solution that's so obvious I cannot see it, Imp?"  
  
Undaunted, Tyrion rose; before Jorah could realize what he intended, the Imp took the rabbits from him and had tossed them into a pan over the cookfire, along with a few wild onions and carrots he produced from his pockets.  
  
"The first is to get Daenerys an army," he said as the meat and blood sizzled in the heated pan. "The problem being, of course, that you ran off with a _khaleesi_ rather than let her be taken to the sacred city of the horselords. The Dothraki will most likely be as pleased to see you as my sweet sister Cersei would be to see me."  
  
"But Cersei will happily pay to see your head," said Jorah, taking his wineskin out from one of the packs and resuming his seat on the log to nurse it while the Imp prepared their meal.  
  
"My point exactly," said Tyrion. "Also, Targaryens aren't historically known for riding horses into conquest, which brings us to your second option: go to Qarth and buy back Daenerys' dragon's eggs."  
  
Jorah's face prickled warmly with the realization that he had _not_ considered this course. He ground his teeth together and said, "The problem with that being that I'm traveling with the only Lannister in the world who doesn't have any bloody money. Unless _you_ do what Lord Tywin could not?"  
  
Tyrion turned away from the cook fire to make a mocking bow, though his grotesque face leered upward. "I'll give you all my shit, Ser Jorah."  
  
"I believe you would."  
  
Straightening up, Tyrion gave the frying meat a stir in the pan. "But you make a valid point. Not to mention that a young girl's arrival in Westeros with three dragon's eggs in hand hardly inspires surrender like a queen's arrival astride one dragon and flanked by two others. Still, if Daenerys truly does regard them as children, as you say, it might win you back her affections, if not her a kingdom. On the other hand, if she truly does regard them as children, as you say, you might be better off without her, my friend."  
  
The Imp waggled his eyebrows in a way that left Jorah in no doubt as to his meaning. Despite his own occasional thoughts that Dany was rather too precious about the eggs, Jorah misliked the idea of anyone else implying that her father King Aerys' madness lurked in her--especially not a brother of the Kingslayer. Jorah felt he ought to knock out another of the Imp's teeth for the honor of his lady wife, but he found he lacked the ire that had possessed him in the tavern in Qohor. The day's ride, and the wine, had wearied and mellowed him; he took another swig from the skin.  
  
"I am _not_ your friend," Jorah muttered, but, curiosity getting the better of him, he asked, "You said there were _three_ things I might do to earn Daenerys' forgiveness?"  
  
"Beg for it. On bended knee. Tell her you're _sorry_."  
  
The wine burned Jorah's throat as he gave a sharp laugh that made him swallow too quickly. " _I'm sorry, Daenerys, for selling you and your unborn child to the man who rebelled against your father?_ I have no doubt that would prove as effective as you crawling before your sister, Imp, and saying, _I'm sorry, sweet Cersei, for shooting our lord father in the bowels, and for poisoning your son at his own wedding feast_."  
  
"I wouldn't compare _your_ queen to Cersei," replied Tyrion, "though now I think of it, there is that one thing they share in common: brothers who love them a little too well. Did Illyrio tell you Viserys tried to bed Daenerys before he gave her to Khal Drogo? I expect the girl grew up thinking she'd marry her brother. Jaime _wishes_ he could marry Cersei. Lucky for her--Daenerys, I mean--if the Dothraki didn't kill Aegon, she'll find she has a long-lost nephew to wed and bed. While my sweet sister fucks our little cousin Lancel. And pretty soon everyone in Westeros will be kin, so there will be no need for war, or the gods will smite everyone for the abomination of incest. But do you know what I find strange in all of this?" he asked, abruptly, bending to take the pan off the fire and divide its steaming contents into two bowls.  
  
"You mean stranger than talking to a man of marrying his wife off to other people?"  
  
The Imp's glittering eyes were almost of a level with Jorah's as he approached to give him his portion of their supper, then seated himself on the log opposite, stretching out his legs to their full and unimpressive length.  
  
He shoved a bite into his mouth, the juices of the rabbit running down his golden stubbled chin, and said, "If Varys and Illyrio were plotting all along to put Aegon on the throne, why go to all the trouble of marrying Daenerys off to Khal Drogo?"  
  
Jorah's ire lessened as he chewed slowly, both on the tender rabbit and the thought the Imp had planted in his mind.  
  
At length, he replied, "Dothraki don't believe in money, so they're a cheaper army than sellswords or slaves. And a nigh unconquerable one, if they could be persuaded to cross the Narrow Sea." All this he had explained to Dany, when she was but a blushing child bride, but he had not voiced the thought which next he spoke to the Imp. "I never was clear what benefit Khal Drogo stood to receive from an alliance with Viserys."  
  
"Apart from his bride, of course."  
  
Jorah heard the taunt, but his mind had already moved beyond it. "Do you think Varys would have eliminated Khal Drogo after he conquered the Seven Kingdoms, to free Daenerys for Aegon?"  
  
"That very thought that crossed my mind."  
  
"A risky move. _Too_ risky, in my view. Even if they killed Drogo, they'd have a vengeful _khalasar_ to contend with."  
  
"But the horde tore itself apart as it was. You saw this yourself."  
  
"First I saw the _kos_ rape to death the witch who murdered Khal Drogo."  
  
"Still." Tyrion set his empty bowl on the ground and sucked the juices off each of his stunted fingers in turn. "It's quite an elegant little plan. A delicate and intricately woven web. As one would expect of the Spider. And to think, Ser Jorah," he said, sliding off the front of the log to lean back against it on his elbows, " _you_ are the man who unraveled it."  
  
Jorah stared hard at the darkening logs amid the glowing embers of the fire. "Or the fly who got caught in it."  
~*~  
  
Next morning they were up with the sun and, after they broke their fast on the cold remains of the rabbits and a few berries the Imp foraged, they mounted their horses again and were on their way again.  
  
"It's to Vaes Dothrak, then?" said Tyrion, squinting into the glare ahead of them. "Decided to try your luck with the horse lords?"  
  
"No," said Jorah. "We won't have to ride nearly so far. The horse lords are coming to us. Don't you smell them?"  
  
The wind had shifted in the night, and Jorah, wakeful despite having bound the kinslaying dwarf in his blanket like a swaddled babe, had caught the familiar stench that could only herald the approach of a _khalasar_. And the decision of his destination had been made for him. He would try his luck with the Dothraki, though it was a hefty wager that anyone the horde knew him at all, much less as a friend of a beloved _khal_.  
  
"I suddenly find myself thanking the gods I'm short a nose," said Tyrion.  
  
"You're short everything."  
  
"I'd stick with being surly and gruff, if I were you. It obviously wasn't your sense of humor that won the heart of the maiden fair."  
  
"It was my pretty face."  
  
"It is, a very pretty face--if we're comparing it to mine. Or all the other males on Bear Island? I once heard your aunt took a bear for a husband."  
  
It was only a joke--and the most good-humored the Imp had made--and one in which Jorah had frequently participated himself. But Jorah could manage only a faint smile as the icy fingers of fear closed around his heart at the reminder of yet another dear one who he might well never see again. Another dear one who, if she did live, was even more likely to have no wish to see him.  
  
"Maege is something of a bear herself," he said, quietly. "Was _she_...?"  
  
"A guest at the Red Wedding?" A tone of genuine sympathy belied Tyrion's flippant turn of phrase. "I'm sorry, my friend. I wish I could tell you more of where your House stands in this war, truly."  
  
"Where we stand," murmured Jorah.  
  
This time, when Tyrion called him _friend_ , he did not correct him.  
  
~*~  
  
"I suppose since the Dothraki don't believe in money," said Tyrion that night as they bedded down for in the outskirts of the Forest of Qohor, Jorah tying him up again, his growing like of the little Lannister ironically making him all the more wary, "that a _khalasar_ isn't where whores go."  
  
"In the Western Market of Vaes Dothrak there are whores," Jorah replied, though he had an idea that wasn't at all what the Imp meant with this repetition about whores, "but the _khalasars_ have bed slaves."  
  
"Ah, yes," said Tyrion with a half-hearted smirk. "I had almost forgotten that I traveled in the company of Ser Jorah Mormont, Westeros' authority on slaves."  
  
"Once Daenerys asked me if I'd repented of that sin, or if I'd commit it again for the right price. Careful, my little lordling of Lannister--if I meet a slaver who places a higher value on your head than Cersei, I'll sell you and be on my way to Qarth."  
  
Looking unimpressed with this threat, Tyrion replied, "If I thought my life was worth one dragon's egg, much less two, I'd sell myself."  
  
It _was_ an idle threat, but Jorah drifted off to sleep mulling over the price of a dwarf.  
  
He dreamed he carried the Imp all the way to Qarth and handed him over to Xaro Xhoan Daxos himself, only instead of being paid a dragon's egg, Jorah was the one clapped in irons while the jewels winked in the nose of the merchant prince whose form shifted into that of Tregar Ormallen of Lys. At his side stood Lynesse, or Dany, Jorah couldn't be sure which, because he was falling down, down into a pit as jeering faces looked down on him from above, placing bets on who would win, the dragon or the bear, and he looked around to find himself trapped between the two snarling and slavering beasts while overhead the crows circled, their wings blackening the sky like mounting storm clouds.  
  
The thunder roused Jorah from the nightmare, though as his eyes opened he saw that there was no storm, only the grey predawn, and the rumble was more rhythmic than thunder, his racing heart matching its tempo. Instantly, the chains of the nightmare released him and he was on his feet, cutting the ropes that bound Tyrion wrist and ankle.  
  
"Quickly," he said, hefting the confused dwarf, blanket and all, onto his mount. "The _khalasar_ approaches."  
  
Ignoring the Imp's sleepy requests to break their fast first, or to at least have a drink, Jorah spurred his horse through the thinning forest, and the thickening grass, until there were no trees at all, only a vast browning prairie before them, stretching into a hazy horizon.  
  
"See the cloud of dust ahead?" Jorah threw back to Tyrion, slowing his horse as the dwarf bounced along on his smaller animal, struggling to catch up. "That'll be the Dothraki. And quite a lot of them."  
  
At least as many horse as Khal Drogo's horde, by his reckoning. Which was not at all what he would have expected, none of the _kos_ having matched their former lord's prowess. Who had united the warring factions? The crones had prophesied that Rhaego would be the stallion who mounts the world, but he was but a babe at the breast, and rode a wooden horse through the poison waters.  
  
"Hopefully quite a lot of your friends," said Tyrion.  
  
"We'll find out soon enough," Jorah said, flicking his reins again.  
  
They met the outriders within the hour, and when Jorah was close enough to the young man leading the way, he thought he was seeing a ghost, so like he was to Rakharo.  
  
"I think it prudent to find out this one's _khal_ before I declare myself," said Jorah to Tyrion in the Common Tongue.  
  
"Do you know him?"  
  
"One of his close kin. Brother, most likely. I took off his head as Daenerys and I made our escape."  
  
"You have such a way with people," muttered Tyrion as Jorah greeted the youth in the Dothraki tongue and asked under what _khal_ he rode."  
  
"Khal Jhogo."  
  
" _Khal_ Jhogo?" Jorah repeated. He could not have heard that correctly. He could not have had such good fortune, after his lifetime of bad luck.  
  
"Are you dumbfounded in a good way?" asked Tyrion. "Or do we need to try to outride the horselords?"  
  
"He let us go. He cut off his braid, in submission to Daenerys." Recovering his senses, Jorah spoke again to the rider. "Send word to your _khal_ that Jorah the Andal has come--" When the lad drew in a sharp breath and his hand went for the _arakh_ at his side, Jorah continued quickly, "--on behalf of Daenerys, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea."  
  
The look of baleful recognition did not leave the young man's dark eyes, but he put away his _arakh_ and bid them follow him, the other two outriders flanking them behind as they rode back to the horde. Jhogo and his bloodriders, of course, headed the _khalasar_ ; more surprising was that Dany's handmaid, Irri, rode alongside the _khal_ , her belly swollen with a child beneath her painted vest. Jorah noted that Jhogo's braid, while not long by Dothraki standards, jangled noisily with a dozen or more bells, and the dark eyes knew him at once.  
  
"It is good you have come, Jorah the Andal," said Khal Jhogo. "We ride to find the _khaleesi_ and the Stallion Who Mounts the World. We ride to make war on Westeros."


	26. Fire and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany's demons drive her to the brink of hell, and Jorah cannot stop her from answering the fire's call.

Blood.   
  
The sheets and Dany's thighs were stained and sticky with it when she awoke from a nightmare scene from her childhood of Viserys beating her, and realized that the throb in the small of her back was real and her gut felt like her arm had in the dream when Viserys' fingers clawed into it and wrenched. At the sight of the blood, clotted and glistening and blackish in the uncertain light of the candle that had burned down to a stub on her bedside table, her heartbeat quickened in alarm. Then, her cry for help making no sound in her parched throat, the haze of sleep cleared.   
  
Her moon's blood had returned.   
  
It had been so long since she'd bled--not counting her issue after giving birth; she'd scarcely been wed a twomonth to Khal Drogo before conceiving his child, and she'd carried Rhaego for nine, and suckled him for over a year-- that she'd nearly forgotten such was the way of women.   
  
With a whimper, she slipped out of bed, clutching the soiled sheet between her legs as she padded gingerly over the Myrish rugs to the wash stand. While she sponged her pale skin clean, she stared blearily at the bed she'd unwillingly left, thinking how much she'd looked forward to sleeping in it after weeks aboard _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ crowded into her narrow bunk with Rhaego, who had neither slept nor suckled throughout what seemed like the entire voyage from Pentos to Valyria. And Dany's milk had dried up, and her moon's blood came upon her, signaling the return of her fertility as she slept alone in the vast cold bed that still bore the imprint not only of her body, but of the one that had used to sleep curled around her, warming her and loving her through the lengthening autumn nights but unable to give her the child she longed for; Jorah's absence was the very reason Rhaego had become so distraught that he would no longer suckle from the breasts from which she had tried in vain to wean him.   
  
The irony wound in so many circles that by the time Dany finished wrapping a strip of linen about herself to catch her flow and donned a shift she felt dizzy. She staggered back to her bed, but the candle guttered out, and in her disoriented stater she wandered out of her bedchamber and into the corridor that led to the center of the manse, from which the three wings of the dwelling broke off like spokes from the hub of a wheel--or, more accurately, the three heads of the dragon of House Targaryen. Rather than turn back, she continued on, groping her way along the smooth plastered walls, not caring much for the idea of returning to her bed and the memories it held, which were now as bittersweet to her as the memory of the house with the red door where she had lived with Willem Darry as a very little girl. Would they drive her from this house, too--the only other home she'd ever known? Would it now haunt her dreams in the Braavosi house's stead?   
  
As Dany's bare feet scuffed over the cold mosaic tiles of the hall, the red door, illuminated by the glowing coals in the hearth, drew her gaze. It was said that after the Asshai'i priest who had lived there before her and perished in the Doom, the remaining inhabitants of Valyria had painted the door that color to keep the demons that haunted the place bound within. Dany remembered how Jorah had scoffed at the superstition, as the manse had been in a sorry state of broken windows and crumbling walls when she had bought it, incapable of keeping so much as a stray cat within.   
  
If only he could know what demons those very walls and windows they had restored now contained, she thought, one corner of her mouth twisting upward as she turned from the door to the window opposite. A stained glass which she had especially commissioned by a local glassworker, depicting the sigil of their joined Houses: the three heads of the dragon writhing from the shaggy body of a bear. A fantastical sigil, Jorah had called it--though he had not, naturally, discouraged her from adopting it. Well, that was appropriate, was it not, for a House that had been built upon a fantastical union? For he had pledged himself to her in treachery and bound her to him with a lie.   
  
She would not have realized that the roar which echoed through the hall was her own except that her throat burned from the sound being torn from it. With a fury she had never felt before she flung herself forward, toppling the gilt wooden altar that had once been erected for R'hollor, the lone god of Asshai. The Lord of Light, they called him. Only his likeness did not reside here any longer, and his altar now lay broken upon the red and black mosaic tiles. Dany bent to pick up one of the broken beams , then hurled it up at the damnable window which blotted out the moonlight.   
  
Once _she_ had been the moon--the moon of Khal Drogo's life--and he had taken her beneath the moon when in the shadow of the Mother of Mountains beside the Womb of the World the night the _dosh khaleen_ proclaimed that the Stallion Who Mounts the World rode within _her_ womb. But Rhaego, like R'hollor, was helpless. His screams that shattered the silence of the house when she had shattered the window were not the screams of a _khal_ leading his horde, but of a starving babe who would not, _could not_ , help himself because he was broken, like the altar, like the window…like the dream of a Targaryen dynasty restored.   
  
And she had broken them.   
  
A glint from the ground caught her eye, and she looked down at the shards of stained glass and gilt wood at her feet and saw the egg. Her eyes welled at the beauty of it as she crouched down amid the debris and felt the familiar weight of it in her hands, drawing strength from its hardness, its unbreakability.   
  
But it _had_ been broken, hadn't it? Formerly one of three, and now severed from its brothers, as she had been. She had broken them asunder to save the life of the child whose cries echoed from another part of the house as she held this silent one, _sold_ them to save Jorah who had only ever been in her service because he, too, had dealt in the business of living flesh. With the monies Xaro Xhoan Daxos had given her as recompense, she had bought this house.   
  
Blood money.   
  
Moon's blood.   
  
Fire and blood…   
  
Blood red, fire red, red dragon with three heads, swooping across a field of darkness.   
  
Cradling her dragon's egg in one arm, Dany wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the splintered end of what had been one of the intricately carved legs of the altar to R'hollor. The ragged edge dug into her palm, and she felt the warm ooze of blood over her palm, saw it drip onto her shift as she rose unsteadily to her feet, onto the red and black mosaic as she dragged the beam toward the fire, murmuring her family's words.  
  
She stood before the hearth, staring for a moment into the embers of the dying fire that glowed red at the hearts of the black coal. Then she plunged the shaft into the fire, holding it there until the gilt had melted off as the molten gold had poured over Viserys' head, crowning him and killing him, until the wooden end burst into flame.   
  
A dragon could not burn, Dany thought as she carried the torch back to the pile of broken wood and set it ablaze. A dragon made fire.   
  
Clutching her egg to her breast, she stepped into the flames.   
  
Time to find out whether she was a dragon…  
  
…or just another mad fool of House Targaryen.  
  
~*~  
  
 _Fire._   
  
The Summer Hill had flickered suddenly with it, looming like a giant's torch over the dark shuttered houses of Valryia as Jorah and his small company rode through the city--Tyrion Lannister had asked whether it was a beacon, Khal Jhogo, if it was the bleeding star heralding the place where the Stallion Who Mounts the World dwelled--and by the time they reached the top of the slope, the house with the red door had been completely consumed by flame.   
  
"DAENERYS!" Jorah bellowed, leaping from his saddle as the horse reared and screamed in terror of the fire.   
  
His feet hit the ground at a full sprint toward the burning manse, not seeing the silhouetted figure of a man rushing from it in his direction until he had barreled into him. Somehow they both kept on their feet, though Jorah practically hoisted the other man, whom he instantly recognized as the house's steward, up by the front of his tunic.   
  
"Where is Queen Daenerys?" he roared, spittle flying from between his teeth into the steward's face, gleaming in the firelight. "Why has this fire been allowed to spread unchecked?"  
  
"Her Grace…would not let us put it out, my lord."  
  
Jorah blinked, unsure whether the steward was being deliberately vague, or if he himself was too stunned for comprehension.   
  
" _Let_ you?" His clutch on the tunic tightened as he pulled the steward so that they were forehead to sweaty soot covered forehead. "How did it begin? And WHERE. IS. MY WIFE?"  
  
"Her Grace started the blaze," sobbed the steward. "She…the men who tried to get her out…" His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his dark eyes gleamed as they darted sidelong, to the burning house. "Were burned."  
  
"They were her servants," Jorah growled. "They should have been burned to death if that's what was required to save her."   
  
" _She_ burned them, my lord," blurted out the steward. "The queen refused to be saved."  
  
"What do you mean?" Jorah shook the man, but the steward's head drooped onto his chest in shame, speech impossible for him as his shoulders quaked with his sobs.   
  
"When you said you feared the fire of Daenerys' fury," drawled Tyrion Lannister at his side, "I had no idea you were speaking literally."  
  
The sobbing steward slumped to the ground as Jorah's fingers uncurled from around the tunic, only to ball again into the fist which he slammed into the Imp's face.   
  
"Ser Jorah! Is that truly helpful at the moment?" asked Ser Barristan Selmy, who had ridden with them on behalf of the boy claiming to be Aegon Targaryen.   
  
"It certainly won't hurt anything," Jorah flung back, giving the fallen dwarf a kick to the gut. He'd had enough of the Imp's insolence, and of Selmy's obvious disdain despite Jorah's having convinced the Dothraki to free him from among the captives who'd violated the _dosh khaleen_ in their foolhardy attempt to rescue Dany. "What say you, Imp? Shall I take you to the queen now?"   
  
But as Ser Barristan had pointed out, Jorah's burst of violent rage accomplished naught but sapping him of his strength. Rather than haul the Imp up from the ground and fling him into the flames, Jorah sank to his knees before the burning manse. The house with the red door, which had haunted Dany's dreams since her childhood. She'd dreamt of it on their wedding night, and had not rested until she found the place, and when she did, had made it their home where she lived with him as man and wife, as queen and consort.   
  
Jorah's eyes swam with the heat and smoke and the memory of how she'd smiled up at him as he carried her over the threshold when they took up residence of the place, and said, as he'd shouldered through the red door, that she'd never thought her dream would be fulfilled in that way. Had she ever imagined it would be fulfilled in _this_ way? Jorah thought bitterly, his eyes on the place where the flames flicked their forked tongues where the front door had been.   
  
The red door. Painted that color by the suspicious Valyrians to keep the demons that they believed haunted the place trapped within. Jorah had scoffed at the notion then. No longer. Not now that he stood upon the brink of the hell Dany had created for her own demons, many of whom he knew by name.   
  
He prayed one did not bear his name--but the gods had not been known to answer the prayers of Jorah Mormont.   
  
_"DAENERYS!"_  
  
Her name ripped from his throat so painfully that it seemed the mere utterance of it had set fire to his vocal chords. Yet he somehow managed to produce a wail--a quiet one, sounding from a long way off, he thought, until he realized the sound had not come from him at all. Nor from the spooked horses, or Irri, Khal Jhogo's queen, or from the two handmaids who had accompanied her to see their former beloved mistress, who stood looking on stoically as the Dothraki did, nor the menservants or maids who had managed to escape the house and now lay gasping for fresh air or coughing on the acrid ash and smoke. The shifting light of the fire in the midst of the utter darkness of the valley in which the city lay made it difficult to make out their faces clearly, but on first scan Jorah couldn't find the nursemaid. But the shrill wail persisted, which could only be long to--  
  
"Rhaego," he rasped. His eyes found the steward again. "Is he…with his mother?"  
  
The steward raised his tear-streaked sooty face and, Jorah saw the man's lips move in response, but as if in a nightmare, he found himself unable to hear anything above the roar of the fire as he contemplated rushing in to find Rhaego. But the mad moment passed with the high-pitched blast that came from the tawny skinned child that was produced from somewhere and placed in his arms; as soon as they had done so, Rhaego's lips pursed into a contented pout and peered up at Jorah with violet eyes beneath drooping lids.   
  
"She was right," said the steward in a pinched voice, with emotion or from the smoke that choked the air, Jorah could not say, though his own throat tickled, and he coughed as he asked, "Who?"   
  
"The nurse--they pulled the prince out of her burnt black arms--but she said the prince started crying when you left the queen in Pentos, and never stopped."   
  
Behind them, Ser Barristan _hmphed_ , and Tyrion, who still lay curled up like a wounded creature on the ground muttered, "Till now."   
  
Jorah heard that, but didn't comprehend. He blinked down at the drowsing boy. "The nurse was burned, but not the child?"  
  
 _Fire cannot kill a dragon_ , Dany's voice whispered to him from long ago.   
  
Holding Rhaego curled against his shoulder--through his tunic feeling the old familiar moisture of the child's tears and snot and drool--Jorah slowly rose to his feet and shuffled as near to the burning house as he could stand. He called out her name again--the child did not stir--and again. Once he thought he heard one of the tongues of fire utter his name, but no, he must be mistaken, that was a fool's hope. If he heard anything, it was only some demon from the seven hells to which he was no doubt damned for his sins. He must be there already, this life, with all its cruel tricks, his punishment…  
  
The flames shifted, blazing yellow to orange to green to--Jorah blinked--black.   
  
Black against a banner of red, in the shape of a woman. Squatting. As Dany had when she birthed the babe Jorah now held in his arms. He watched as the silhouette of her hand, fingers splayed, reached down and from between her legs drew out…a winged creature, which screeched and then flapped up, tucking its wings around its body as it nestled into her arms to suckle at her breast.   
  
He'd seen this before. In the House of the Undying.   
  
_Undying.  
  
"JORAH!"_  
  
He gazed into the flames for another moment, but the black shape had vanished.   
  
This was not the House of the Undying. It was the house with the red door.   
  
Red for fire…  
  
…and red for the blood of Daenerys Targaryen.


	27. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the ashes that birthed her dragon, Dany finds pieces of her old life in the khalasar; but is there anything left of her life with Jorah?

Between waking and sleeping, a whisper.   
  
His name.   
  
Her voice.   
  
An upward tug at the corner of his mouth. "Daenerys…" His own voice, hoarse. He grunted. Throat sore. Ill? He swallowed. Not from illness, from screaming. Why?   
  
Shoulder ached, too. And his hip. From lying on his side. On the ground. As he had every night, since he'd left his wife in Pentos. A nightmare, then. _Fire and blood._   
  
He shifted. A whimper. Not his. Cracked open a crusty eye, glanced down, neck popping, to see a child nestled sleeping in his arms. Warm. Soft. _Rhaego._ Jorah let his eyelid fall shut again and relaxed into the folds of his cloak, twitching it as best he could so that it provided the boy with a little more protection against the predawn chill.   
  
"Jorah…"  
  
The whisper again, seeping into his consciousness just as he'd begun to drift into dream. Accompanied by occasional crackle of a dying fire. Dying, dead, Daenerys...  
  
 _Daenerys._  
  
Everything came back to him, then: the house, the fire, his own screams. Daenerys was dead.   
  
Jorah pressed his face into the dirt and wished he was, too.   
  
"Jorah." Her voice was stronger now. As was the familiar grip of slight, slender fingers on his shoulder, shaking him slightly. "Look at me. _Here I stand_."  
  
The words of House Mormont compelled him to slowly raise his head and open his eyes, swollen from a night of weeping. Yes, there she stood, though he hardly dared trust the bleary vision. Veiled in lingering smoke and the morning fog that blanketed the Summer Hill where it rose out of the mountain-rimmed Valyrian isle, her hair pearlescent in the pale rising sun behind her.   
  
"Gods be good," Jorah said--or sobbed--as he sat up on his knees. "Daenerys…you're…"   
  
He shifted Rhaego to rest in the crook of one arm, and stretched out a trembling hand to touch her fingertips.  
  
Real.   
  
Warm.   
  
No, _hot_. Burning.   
  
_Fire made flesh._  
  
"You…" He pushed to his feet, and his hand released hers to settle momentarily on her hip before sliding over her fair skin to settle in the curve of her waist. "You don't have a mark on you…" His fingers drifted up higher over her belly, the ripples of her ribcage, until they brushed the underside of her breast. His eyes widened as awareness fully dawned. "Or a stitch of clothing."  
  
It must be a dream, after all--though that didn't stop Jorah from unpinning his cloak to drape it over her.   
  
"What do I have to do for you to notice anything but my breasts?"   
  
Dany smiled faintly at him as his fingers went slack and the forest green cloak puddled at his feet as the reptilian creature he had not previously noticed clutching her shoulder with its taloned feet raised a head of shining black scales and spread its wings.   
  
" _Fire and blood_ ," Jorah murmured. "That's not…"  
  
"I'd say it's a dragon," came Tyrrion Lannister's drawl behind him, "but then again I might also be distracted by the breasts, Ser Bear."  
  
"Silence, you fool," hissed Ser Barristan Selmy, "and show a little reverence."  
  
Suddenly squirming in Jorah's arm, Rhaego squealed and lunged for his mother. The dragon screamed, but Dany laughed as she caught up her son and said, in Dothraki, "Rhaego, meet your brother. Drogon."   
  
_Drogon_. Jorah swallowed the jealousy that instinctively rose at the dragon's obvious namesake. He was just grateful Dany was alive, that _he_ was still alive to witness this miraculous thing no one on earth had seen in three hundred years. Daenerys, the Queen, _his wife_ , had birthed a _dragon_.   
  
And he could not but smile to watch her looking on with the indulgent glow only a mother could possess as her son reached out to grab the young dragon's head, giggling from his belly as Drogon snapped at his fingers and snorted smoke from his nostrils.   
  
Abruptly, Dany's violet eyes flicked up to meet Jorah's--but only for an instant; the laughter faded as her gaze drifted beyond him. He followed it, glancing over his shoulder where those who had traveled with him huddled together, gawking.   
  
"Now, Jorah, I would meet these people you have brought me." Dany's eyes met his again, and a half-shy smile flickered across her lips. "After you've given me your cloak."  
  
~*~  
  
Daenerys Targaryen had passed a night in an inferno and walked out unburnt, and the mother of a dragon, but the three Dothraki girls who had formerly served as her handmaids seemed more interested in the fact that she had birthed the Stallion Who Mounts the World and was covered from head to toe in soot. Rhaego, however, would not be parted from Jorah, who was tasked with assembling her _kos_ and their captives, so the trio contented themselves with peppering Dany with questions about the babe while Doreah and Jhiqui scrubbed her skin in a copper tub of near scalding water. They were in one of the guest rooms The Dragon's Nest--the very one, Dany was all too aware, where she and Jorah had spent their wedding night and several moons of nights until the house with the red door had been fit for living. Which now was no more than a skeleton of charred stone.   
  
"Jorah the Andal help _khaleesi_ birth Stallion Who Mounts the World?" asked Irri, reclining on a divan and rubbing her long brown fingers in a slow circle over her own belly which swelled from beneath her painted leather vest with Khal Jhogo's unborn child. One of her eyebrows arched with an almost comical skepticism, and it was plain to Dany that the new _khaleesi_ was trying to imagine her own husband tasked with a duty no _khal_ before him had faced.   
  
"He'd never seen a birth," Dany replied, "but he proved quite the natural midwife."  
  
Through the cascade of water Doreah poured over her head, Dany glimpsed the maid exchange amused glances with Jhiqui before the two broke out giggling.   
  
Irri, however, gave her head a defiant little shake. "Bad luck for man to be near laboring women. It is known."  
  
"It is known," Jhiqui and Doreah intoned, though their laughter rather undermined their agreement with Dothraki custom.   
  
"There was no one else to assist me in that dead city," Dany replied. "Vaes Tolorro, we called it. I was willing to risk a little ill fortune to deliver my child safely." She smiled at Irri. "You will see when it's your turn, sweetling."  
  
Irri pulled a face. "Did he sicken at sight of baby coming?"   
  
"Well…" Dany couldn't stop the grin that tugged at the corner of her mouth as she remembered how Jorah had frozen when she asked him, as she crouched before him on all fours, whether he could see her son's head. "I think he had something rather different in mind when he imagined seeing certain parts of me for the first time…"   
  
The girls shrieked with laughter, Irri included now. Dany giggled along with them, and allowed her body to relax beneath the sudsy water. How she'd missed them; the Valyrian maids who had waited upon her in her house with the red door had been conscientious, but not companionable, never daring to cross the line between mistress and servant as her girls from the _khalasar_ frequently did.   
  
Of course no such line existed between her and Irri now--and the _khaleesi_ did not hesitate to meet the queen's gaze squarely, as equals. Dany had never noticed how sharp and shrewd Irri's dark eyes were until now, as the amusement faded from them. They reminded her of Jorah's, in a way.   
  
" _Khaleesi_ do not take husband after her _khal_ die," Irri said. "It is known."  
  
"It is known," Jhiqui echoed; her fingers stopped scrubbing Dany's scalp, and her soapy hands hung at her sides.  
  
"It is known," said Doreah, her sponge leaking water onto the wooden floor as she dangled it over the edge of the tub.   
  
The words were so like the ones Illryio Mopatis had spoken to her-- _You must be the first khaleesi in history to take a second husband_ \--that Dany bristled before she recognized that the girls regarded her not with accusation, but curiosity, as ever they always had done whenever Dany asserted herself against the Dothraki customs. If any in this room condemned her, it was her own heart.   
  
"I am no _khaleesi_ any longer," she said, but Irri protested, pushing herself up on one elbow.  
  
"Khal Jhogo bend knee to Daenerys Queen. He call you blood of his blood and Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea. He give you _khalasar_."  
  
"He gave the _khalasar_ to _Rhaego_ ," Dany conceded, remembering how the tall young warrior with the short but many-belled braid had knelt before her when she stepped out from the haze of lingering smoke, clad only in Jorah's dark green cloak and carrying her human child in one arm and Drogon perched on the other. Strangely, in that moment of being given so much power--all hers, not her husband's--she had also felt more humbled than she ever had in her life. "Rhaego is the Stallion Who Mounts the World. I am but Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."  
  
"And Jorah the Andal," said Irri, hoisting herself awkwardly to her feet, "he is your… _king_ …you say?"  
  
"No," Dany said, sharply, and her handmaids glanced at each other in surprise.  
  
It was an abrupt shift, Dany supposed, considering she had discussed him willingly enough, and with a light heart, in relation to Rhaego's birth. When it came to answering their questions about her marriage, however…Well, how could she, when she hadn't yet found any satisfactory answers to her own? She thought it a safe guess that Jorah had, during his ride with the _khalasar_ from the Forest of Qohor, told the girls that their marriage had occurred, not that it was a troubled one, built on treachery and deceit.   
  
"Westerosi marriages are not like Dothraki ones," she replied. "I am Jorah's queen. And I am his woman. It is…not simple."  
  
If the girls noticed her inner turmoil, it was not evident in their bright eyes and smiles.   
  
"For long time he look at you with love in his eyes," Jhiqui said, coming over with a towel as Doreah took Dany by the arm and helped her stand in the slick copper tub.   
  
"He want you while Khal Drogo ride with _khalasar_. It is known."  
  
This ought to have made her blush with happiness, but instead the heat that prickled from Dany's belly was ire. Everything was tainted, now. "Is it known that he informed on me, as well?"  
  
Jhiqui and Doreah cast uncertain glances at Irri, who narrowed her eyes and asked, "What Daenerys mean?"  
  
Sighing, Dany shrank into the rough towel. "Nothing."  
  
When they had dried her off, Dany nearly wept to see that they had brought with them all of her old things which she'd had to leave behind with the _khalasar_. She wanted nothing more than to slip into the familiar sandsilk trousers and painted vest that had become like a second skin to her as she galloped across the Dothraki Sea astride her beloved little silver, but instead settled reluctantly upon a gown Illyrio had given her when she and Viserys were living with him, before he'd arranged her marriage to Drogo, which seemed a more fitting court garment--such a court as it was, convening in a quayside inn.   
  
As Jhiqui and Doreah braided her hair, Dany scrutinized her reflection in the glass for any sign that she looked more queenly, or at least older, since she had emerged from the flames the Mother of Dragons--and there would be more than Drogon, for getting her other two eggs back from Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Pyat Pree was the task that lay before her. She looked tired--whether from the sleepless night, or from the difficult weeks since she'd learned of Jorah's betrayal, she could not say--and not a day beyond her sixteen years. Though she hadn't yet seen this young man who styled himself Aegon--her nephew--she did not at all like the thought of looking younger than him, even though he was her senior by two years. And if she couldn't help that, she regretted not being able to at least look more regal than he by crowning her elaborate coif with the golden circlet of entwined dragons with the twinkling ruby eyes she'd had made for her wedding to Jorah, which certainly would have melted in the fire.   
  
That loss, however, was not responsible for the feeling of cold fingers gripping her stomach, and twisting, at the realization that her crown was not the only of her wedding garments that had perished in the fire; the bride's cloak of Targaryen black and Mormont green, emblazoned with the three-headed dragon with the body of a bear, which Jorah had so lovingly placed about her shoulders, was no more than ash now. What of the onyx bear pin he'd bought her at the quay in Qarth? Could it have survived? And if so, would it even be possible to find it among the ashes? Oh, what had she done? What madness had come over her?   
  
"Khaleesi?" asked Doreah, letting a section of Dany's hair slide from between her fingers as her hand touched her shoulder. "Something is the matter?"  
  
Across the chamber on the bed, Drogon shrieked as he uncoiled his body of shining black scales and stretched his red leathern wings.   
  
Smiling, Dany wiped away the tears she hadn't realized had fallen upon her cheeks and rose from her bench before the looking glass. "I am the Mother of Dragons. I must not think of what the fire took from me, but what it has given me."   
  
She plucked Drogon from the bed, wincing as he slipped his head inside the neckline of her gown and gave suck. Her moon's blood was still upon her, so she didn't know if her milk had come back to nourish him, yet it seemed wrong to refuse her child what he sought. And he'd refused the bit of raw horse flesh Jhiqui had given her to feed him.   
  
"What Daenerys lose in fire?" asked Irri.   
  
"A gift from Jorah." Dany swallowed the knot that formed in her throat. "Just a trinket."  
  
 _And no more than that,_ Dany assuaged the guilt that rose up at her flippancy. _Jorah called it a trinket himself._  
  
Irri went to the case containing Dany's things and rifled through it until she found what she was looking for; Dany's breath caught as the girl drew out a stack of familiar books bound in cracked leather with yellowing pages, and she gingerly removed Drogon from her breast and placed him once more on the counterpane to free her to take the books instead.   
  
"Jorah the Andal give Daenerys these, no? For wedding to Khal Drogo?"  
  
Dany nodded, her throat too constricted to allow her to speak. Besides her dragon's eggs, Jorah's books had been the wedding gift which delighted her most, not only for what they were, but for the humility with which he gave them, and the evident thought which he had put into the choosing, had made her trust him completely from that moment on. The thought that he had made her the gift not out of kindness to a girl who had never known her true home, but out of calculation what would win him a place at her side, the better for him to spy on her and her brother, made his betrayal tangible; holding the well-worn tomes, Dany's eyes and throat and her very heart burned as they had not when she walked through flame.   
  
At a rap on the door, Dany blinked back tears as she shoved the books to the bottom of the trunk, burying them once more beneath her old clothing.   
  
"Enter," she said, and was unsurprised that the door swung open to reveal Jorah, just lowering a laughing Rhaego from his shoulders. The maids giggled at the sight, and chattered girlishly to each other in the Dothraki tongue--as if Dany and Jorah could not understand what they said--and even Dany, despite the raw feeling in her heart, could not but smile a little at the love that was so evident between Jorah and Drogo's son. Even the most accomplished mummer could not feign such a bond.   
  
"Jhogo and his bloodriders have brought the prisoners," Jorah said. His eyes raked over Dany as he set Rhaego on his feet; the child toddled off to play with Drogon. "The council may convene at your pleasure."  
  
Dany bid the maids leave them and see that there was food and drink waiting for them. The door latch had scarcely clicked shut behind them when Jorah closed the space between them in a single step and put his arms about her waist.   
  
"You were wearing this gown the first time I laid eyes on you."  
  
"Did you include it in your report to Lord Varys?"   
  
Jorah's embrace slackened; for a moment his face did, too, as surely as it would if she'd slapped him. Then, the lines etched themselves deeply in his flesh, and his eyes darkened beneath heavy brows.   
  
"I rode halfway across the Eastern continent and back and brought you an army and hostages," Jorah cried, his voice ragged. "What must I do to prove my loyalty?"   
  
"Nothing," Dany replied. "It's not your loyalty that is in question."  
  
Jorah snorted. "Only my character."  
  
"We will discuss your character later." Dany rescued Drogon from being poked by Rhaego and seated herself in an armchair by the chamber's single window, the dragon in her lap. "For now I would have you tell me of my prisoners."  
  
"You think lowly of my own character while trusting me to discern the character of others?"  
  
For a heartbeat, Dany hesitated; he had a point. "You have never counseled me wrongly as to whom I should trust."  
  
Jorah approached her chair. "Then trust _me_."  
  
"We shall see," Dany replied, coolly, though the hurt on his face deepened the ache in her own heart and compelled her to reach out for his hand and give it a reassuring press. “Rhaego does. And he is the Stallion Who Mounts the World."  
  
"Rhaego's first instinct when he met Drogon was to put his finger in the dragon's mouth. I'm not sure what a glowing recommendation that is."  
  
 _Or mayhaps,_ Dany thought, _it means bears are not so dangerous as dragons._


	28. In the Hall of the Dragon Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany meets her captives.

"You claim to be my brother Prince Rhaegar's son."  
  
Dany eyed the prisoner who stood before the battered table in the closet off the common room of The Dragon's Nest which the innkeep called his counting house. She did her best not to wriggle on her stool, though the hard narrow bench had made her arse go to sleep, and instead focused on how glad she was for the height it lent her as she interrogated the lanky youth. This was the first council she'd ever held, and she felt quite the queen as she sat proud and straight, her hands resting on Drogon's fiery flesh as he lay coiled in her lap like a serpent, his blood red eyes trained on the prisoner and his tongue lashing out from time to time.   
  
Griff--she refused to call him Aegon until she could be sure that _was_ his true name--certainly _looked_ more Targaryen than anyone she'd met, the roots of his hair the distinctive silvery blond above the blue dye that had begun to grow out, and his eyes decidedly more violet than blue. His features, however, were unlike those she'd conjured up for Rhaegar--which, admittedly, were an older, milder version of Viserys’--though she conceded that Rhaegar's son might have favored his Dornish mother.   
  
And she couldn't help but think of Viserys, always so proud and defiant, even as Khal Drogo's bloodriders had restrained him as he received his golden crown, when the young man with bound hands puffed out his chest, tilted his chin upward, and said, "I claim it because it is _true_. I _am_ Aegon Targaryen, the sixth of that name. I am your brother's son, my lady--"  
  
"Your Grace," Dany corrected him.   
  
" _I_ am His Grace," Griff retorted; though his nose was nothing like Viserys', his nostrils flared just as her brother's had done when vexed. "If you would be my wife, _Princess_ Daenerys, _then_ you would be Her Grace." His gaze flicked over her right shoulder, where Jorah stood in the position of chief advisor and guard. "But it seems that is not possible."  
  
Jorah snorted, Drogon hissed, and Dany herself choked back words that burned like bile in her throat, repeating the words over in her mind which Jorah had spoken to her before this council had convened: _If the boy is an impostor, he does not know it._ How else could she expect Griff to behave, when he had been raised from birth to believe he was the heir to the Iron Throne? _She_ had been brought up to believe the same about herself, and by a person whose insanity perhaps made his claim less credible than Griff's.   
  
Of course, the proof of _her_ bloodline now turned its horned head and nuzzled its hot snout into the neckline of her gown to suckle at her breast. Realizing she had begun to slouch, Dany threw back her shoulders and spoke to Griff in tones as level as her gaze.   
  
"The gods must smile upon you that you live to stand before me. When my brother King Viserys violated the sacred city of Vaes Dothrak, the great Khal Drogo made him a crown of molten gold, which was the death of him. Have you survived such a test? Are you blood of the dragon?"  
  
"No, my lady--"  
  
"I am. Do not wake the dragon."  
  
As if on command, Drogon pulled off her breast, his head lashing around on his whip of a neck to flick his tongue and snort smoke at Griff.   
  
He took a slight step backward, into the solid form of the young _ko_ who looked so like her dead bloodrider Rakharo, whose long tanned fingers clapped around Griff's arm as tightly as a shackle.   
  
"F-forgive me… _Your Grace_ ," Griff stammered.  
  
Dany tried not to smirk visibly at his submission, though Drogon expressed his own feelings on the matter with a rather haughty hiss before he latched once more onto her breast.  
  
"You have been brought up to believe you are King Aegon," she said. "By whom?"  
  
She'd had the story from Jorah, of course, but it was not the same as hearing it from Griff's own mouth. And she wanted to know whether he would dare lie to her.   
  
"By Jon Connington, Lord of Griffin's Roost. Prince Rhaegar's beloved friend."  
  
"Who was exiled by my father King Aerys for his defeat at the Battle of the Bells," Dany said, in her mind adding what Jorah had told her, _for refusing to carry out a battle plan that would have slain many women and children_.   
  
She squirmed again on her bench, as much at the horror of such a strategy as that it had come directly from her father. Madness… Though words Jorah had spoken to her drifted from even further back in her mind: _If you would be queen, it will mean killing Robert's children--the Princess Myrcella and the little King Tommen, and Stannis' daughter--and the babes of any other rivals who would one day make war on Rhaego's claim._  
  
Raising her voice, as if to speak over Jorah in her mind, she said, "Jon Connington has long been rumored to have drunk himself to death. You will, of course, understand if I am mistrustful of men come back from the dead."  
  
"If my queen will permit me," came a tentative and aged-crackled voice from near the doorway; Dany swung her gaze as Griff turned to settle on the white-haired, bearded knight who stood under the guard of the two other bloodriders. "I will vouch that the man of whom you speak is, truly, Lord Jon Connington. I saw him with mine own eyes, at the house of Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos."  
  
" _You_ vouch?" Dany said. "Ser Barristan Selmy, who served in my father's Kingsguard, then swore fealty to the Usurper? Do you turn your white cloak a third time and swear fealty to me?"  
  
Most men would have wavered at such a question, but Dany watched Ser Barristan intently, and saw neither his blue eyes flicker from her to Griff, nor even a telltale roll of his throat with a discomfited swallow. Age might have made his voice unsteady, but not lack of conviction as he replied, "I serve the true heir to the Iron Throne."  
  
"A careful answer, ser." Dany returned her attention to Griff. "Where is Jon Connington, then? Dead in Vaes Dothrak because of your foolhardy quest?"  
  
Griff shifted his weight; though his eyes were on Dany, his gaze turned inward. "He was in Myr, rallying the Golden Company to fight for my seat on the Iron Throne, when I conceived my plan to rescue Your Grace from the crones." Again the nostrils flared a little as the violet eyes met Dany's again. "I knew no swords were allowed in the sacred city of the Dothraki, so I took only Ser Barristan with me."   
  
"Come now, Young Griff, don't lie to the queen," drawled a voice from somewhere in the vicinity of Selmy and the bloodriders--the Imp's, though Dany couldn't see him over Griff. "You know you took only Ser Barristan with you because Jon Connington would never accompany you on such an idiotic quest, and would have stopped it altogether, if he'd got wind of it."   
  
Behind her, Jorah snorted. Dany might have laughed, too, but pressed her lips tightly together, on principle misliking the idea of being amused by the Kingslayer's brother, even if he was a dwarf. She could not tell whether he referred to her as queen out of respect or mockery, and she gritted her teeth that Jorah apparently felt no such qualm.   
  
"If you are so knowledgeable of the ways of the Dothraki," she said to Griff as if there had been no interruption, "then you should also know that they are not famed for their mercy. Khal Jhogo, why have you allowed these men to live?"  
  
In Dothraki, Jhogo repeated to Dany what Jorah had already told her: that the Dothraki had seen the Red Comet when it appeared and known that it signified the birth of the Stallion Who Mounts the World, and that somewhere the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea lived. They had not immediately set out to search for Dany and the child, Jhogo having been embroiled in his own game--not of thrones, but of saddles--but when he'd returned to Vaes Dothrak a _khal_ in his own right, to bring his bride and their unborn child before the crones, they arrived almost at the same time as Griff, and the crones had prophesied that his arrival was a sign that now was the time to find the wayward _khaleesi_ .   
  
"Boy say he wed Dan Ares queen," Jhogo concluded in his halting version of the Common Tongue of Westeros. "But _khaleesi_ do not take husbands after khals."  
  
" _She_ did," Griff said, his eyes narrowing on Dany before shifting to Jorah as he spat, "A lord so low as to be almost of common birth. An exile and an informer."  
  
Despite the uncertain state of her marriage Dany said, "I will no more allow disrespect for my royal consort than for my own royal person."  
  
"Pay no heed to him, Your Grace," came the Imp's voice once again, "Aegon's just got his smallclothes in a twist because I introduced your lord husband to him as Uncle Jorah."  
  
"You must put him aside, Daenerys," persisted Griff, "and join your strength to mine through a royal marriage. It is not for a queen to wed for love."  
  
Dany's face reddened at his deliberately disrespectful familiar address, but she was too furious with all that he implied to correct him for that seeming triviality. Or to react to the pain in her breast as Drogon clung to her as she leapt to her feet.  
  
"Is that what Jon Connington taught you? Is that what he believed of his beloved Prince Rhaegar? That he bore no love for his wife Elia of Dorne?"  
  
"Well, there is the thing about Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark," said Tyrion Lannister.   
  
"Bring the Imp forward," Dany barked to her bloodriders, her chest heaving with her breathless rage.   
  
Griff was dragged roughly aside as the dwarf, unbound but flanked by his Dothraki guards, waddled forward, his chin of a level with the top of the table. Deep within, Dany felt a twinge of conscience that looming over him like this was not in keeping with the sort of queen she meant to be--she did not, after all, feel any disgust for the way he had been born; only to whom--but only enough to make her resume her seat, not to have a stool brought for the Imp.   
  
"Jorah tells me that you don't know when to shut your mouth, though a deal that comes out of it is sound council."  
  
"Does he, now?" Tyrion smirked up at Jorah. "He was singing a different tune when he was knocking my teeth out."  
  
"You will have fewer unless you soon give evidence of anything but the former," Dany said. "Why should I take council from the Kingslayer's brother?"  
  
"Why should I serve the Mad King's daughter? Or the Beggar King's sister?"  
  
"Because I am neither my father nor my brother!"   
  
Tyrion smiled as he made a little bow. "I believe my point is made."  
  
No, it could not be so. Dany's heart pounded. "You may not be a kingslayer, but you are a _kin_ slayer, are you not?"  
  
"I don't deny that I've killed Your Grace's most dangerous opponent," said the Imp, rocking back and forth on his heels, "and I'll do everything I can to rid you of my sweet sister Queen Cersei--with pleasure."  
  
"Have you anything else to offer me but the services of a rather unlikely assassin?"  
  
Tyrion's eyes dropped down to Drogon, and unsettling as they were, one black and one bright as an emerald--or an asp--Dany thought that of everyone who had beheld the first dragon in three hundred years, he alone had looked at it with more awe than terror. "I'm something of an expert in dragonlore."   
  
"But obviously you've never dealt with real dragons."  
  
"I beg your pardon, but neither has Your Grace. And I do know that unless you'd like your teats chewed off--and I daresay your husband won't--" This with a cheeky glance at Jorah. "--then you'd better see about feeding him properly. Meat. And dragons don't like it raw."  
  
Suddenly wearied by the council, Dany dismissed the Dothraki and her prisoners from her presence. When they had gone, shutting the door behind her, Dany plucked Drogon from her breast and set him on the table, then slumped over it, rubbing her aching eyes. She flinched when Jorah's big hands settled heavily at the base of her neck, but he did not withdraw, and she relaxed as his fingers began to massage the knots that had formed at the top of her spine and along her shoulder blades.   
  
"Is this what I've come to?" she said. "Surrounding myself with an army of rapers and advisors who include kinslayers and turncoats and--"  
  
Jorah's hand flew away as if her skin had burst into flame and burnt him. "Slavers?" he said, roughly, his boots thudding on the floorboards as he rounded the table to face her. "Spies?"  
  
Sighing, Dany raised her head. "I did not mean--"  
  
"Didn't you?" The table shuddered as both his palms came to rest on the surface and he loomed over it, the lines of his face hard, his eyes dark. Drogon shrieked, skittered up Dany's arm to perch on her shoulder, and puffed smoke from his nostrils.   
  
She stared back at her husband, and saw herself mirrored in his gaze, no longer the tired girl she had earlier beheld in the looking glass, but lean. Hard. Tried by fire, but unburnt. A dragon on one shoulder. She had an empty one where another might sit. And arms to hold a third.   
  
She knew, then, what she must do.   
  
"Perhaps I did mean it," she said. "It was, after all, you who told me that if I want to win my game of thrones, I shall have to compromise. I see now that I must--but not for a throne."  
  
Now Jorah's features creased with confusion. "Daenerys?"  
  
"My father might have been willing to sacrifice children. I am a mother, and there is nothing I won't do to rescue mine. Tell Captain Groleo we sail on the morn for Qarth."


	29. A History of Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany finds an unlikely tutor in Tyrion, but his lessons shake the foundation on which she has build the House of Targaryen.

"My, my," said Tyrion Lannister, his mismatched eyes coming to rest on Drogon from where he stood in the doorway of Dany's cabin, Jorah looming behind him even as he stooped in the low-ceilinged ship's corridor, "look how he's grown."  
  
"Yes…" Dany drew out the word, her fingers ceasing to stroke the fire-hot scales on the top of Drogon's head.  
  
She'd been braced for the Imp's cheek, but could not now be certain his words _were_ that, the maternal part of her warming at the slightest hint of a compliment being paid to her child. In the fortnight since _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ set sail, Drogon had outgrown her lap and achieved a height that allowed her to rest her hand quite comfortably upon head when he perched at her feet; if his growth continued at this rate, by the time they landed in Qarth he would be able to stand behind her chair and rest his chin on her shoulder. It was no stretch of her imagination that she might begin her conquest of Westeros astride his back, as her ancestor Aegon the First had ridden Balerion, the Black Dread, though Jorah argued that like all young, his growth must eventually slow.  
  
 _Though what does Jorah not find to argue about of late?_ Realizing that her gaze had drifted up to her husband's scowling face, she flicked her eyes downward to meet Tyrion's and twitched her lips into a smile.  
  
"It seems you were right about the meat," she said.  
  
"Prince Drogon likes it well done, does he?"  
  
"Blackened."  
  
"That's no way to eat meat." Even in jest, Jorah argued. Drogon darted out his tongue, snake-like.  
  
"I quite agree with Ser Bear," said Tyrion. "I prefer to chase mine around the plate."  
  
"You would, lion," Jorah grumbled.  
  
"Thank you, Ser Jorah," Dany said, drawing up her shoulders , as if to deflect his wounded glance at her form of adress; he deserved much worse from her, she assuaged her guilt, for his betrayal; he was graced with her presence far more often than he was denied it, she having allowed him to share her cabin--though not her bed, and only for Rhaego's sake, who would not close his eyes of a night without the assurance that he would open them and find his papa still near. "I will interview my prisoner in private."  
  
She wasn't certain which she found more surprising: that Jorah obeyed with a bow and no utterance of protest, or that the Imp's protruding brow wrinkled in something like a sympathetic expression as he watched the knight go. What was she to make of this unlikely rapport between one man who had for a time informed on her and another whose brother had slain her father?  
  
In spite of that fact, the sight of the dwarf struggling to balance on bandy legs against the motion of the ship elicited sympathy in _her_ ; she bade him to take a seat at the table, angling her own chair--on the back of which Drogon clambered up--conversationally toward his, and even offered him her own good wine, which he accepted rather too eagerly.  
  
"I would hear what else you know of dragons." She arched an eyebrow. "Or is your expertise limited to their diets?"  
  
"Even if it was," came Tyrion's reply from within his goblet, "it would still surpass yours. I hope your royal teats have recovered from that dangerous little brush with ignorance? I asked Ser Jorah, but he hasn't seen them in a fair while."  
  
Dany's face flushed as hot as Drogon's flesh; she was sure if she spoke she would bring forth fire, too, but the Imp didn't give her the chance.  
  
"It would help me to instruct Your Grace if I knew what you do know of dragons," he said, his tone suppliant, even if his posture--leaning back in his chair, fingers hooked together and resting on his stomach--was not. "What have you been told of King Aerys? And, more importantly, who told it to you?"  
  
"I meant literal dragons, Lord Tyrion," Dany heard herself say; she could not imagine why she was still talking to this vile little man, least of all with a respectful address.  
  
"I'm no lord. _My_ father would not allow me even that dignity. But how can you expect to understand your children if you do not understand their forebears?"  
  
"Very well then," said Dany, exhaling her breath slowly through her nostrils. "Although it can hardly come as a surprise to you that all I know of my father came to me from Viserys."  
  
"Who was himself but a child when Aerys died."  
  
"When Aerys was _murdered_. By your brother," Dany corrected, fully expecting him to repeat the argument he had made before about Ser Jaime's sins not being his own.  
  
Instead, Tyrion looked at her levelly. "I propose a compromise for Your Grace. We'll say Aerys was assassinated. It doesn't necessarily imply evil intent. Jaime only stabbed Aerys in the back--" His tones sliced as sharp as the blade his brother had wielded, evoking an image of the fell deed so visceral that it made Dany flinch. "--because the choice put to him was your father, or his own, or to watch the city burn. Obviously Aerys' fatal error was in asking the wrong Lannister boy to commit patricide. Or to play with wildfire, for that matter. I set the Blackwater ablaze, have you heard?"  
  
"I should have your lying tongue removed." Drogon hopped from the back of Dany's chair onto her shoulder as she stood; the weight of him made her slump, but she forced her posture erect. "My father would have to be mad to burn his own city."  
  
"He burned his own leal lords," Tyrion replied, somehow making Dany feel like the small one though she was standing upright and looking down upon a seated dwarf. "Why do you think he's known as the Mad King, Daenerys?"  
  
"He _wasn't_ mad. The people only called him that."  
  
"Says who? Your brother? Who wasn't mad when he unsheathed a sword in the sacred city of the Dothraki and demanded Khal Drogo give him a golden crown? You, who certainly weren't mad when you decided to burn down your house around yourself and your child?"  
  
"Silence!"  
  
Drogon's screech swallowed Dany's, and his wings beat the air around her as he unfurled them, though he did not fly, his talons piercing her flesh and rooting him firmly to her shoulder. Blood, hot and sticky, trickled down her skin to stain her painted leather vest, but she did not remove him from his perch; the pain he caused her was nothing compared to the stab of Tyrion's words in her heart.  
  
 _Mad_. They thought she was mad. She'd seen the way her maids and her bloodriders had regarded her since she stepped out of the charred skeleton of her house with the red door. Griff, Ser Barristan Selmy--not that she gave one whit for _their_ opinion--even Jorah. Oddly not Tyrion, whatever he said now with such insolence in those mismatched eyes. Why, her own had gaped at her in disbelief, and narrowed in suspicion both by turns each time she'd looked at her face in the glass: only a madwoman would have set fire to a house in which her babe slept.  
  
And yet…those flames had brought forth Drogon as surely as she had birthed Rhaego with the blood of her womb. If she hadn't set it, her shoulder would be void of _this_ child. And she hadn't _felt_ mad before the fire; her whole line of thought had seemed so logical leading up to that point. Or was that the nature of madness? Were dragons in fact born of madness?  
  
"If my father was truly mad," she said slowly, in a low voice, "wouldn't someone have told me before now? Illyrio? Or Jorah?"  
  
Tyrion lurched on his seat to tear a chunk of bread off the loaf at the center of the fable. "Illyrio cared more about being your brother's Master of Coin than in telling an orphaned prince the truth. And before his exile," he said around a mouthful, "Jorah was but a minor lord, bannerman to a higher lord. He knew Aerys no better than Viserys did."  
  
The throb in her shoulder suddenly intolerable, Dany pulled the young dragon off her shoulder, wincing as his claws slid out from her flesh, and set him on the table before Tyrion.  
  
"So Jorah pretended to be a loyal subject," she said.  
  
"Or he protected you from what was naught to him but hearsay. Reliable hearsay, but hearsay nevertheless. That's what knights do, isn't it? Protect their ladies?"  
  
Dany flopped down upon her chair; with her arms folded across her chest, shoulders hunched so that her hair fell over them, she knew she must give off less an air of queen than petulant girl, but she didn't care, nor did she care to hear an enumeration of all the good Jorah had done her. She _knew_ he had protected her. That did not change the fact that he had first betrayed her.  
  
"Even if what you say is true and my father was mad, I have never heard any such claim made about Rhaegar. Yet I think you love him no better than Aerys."  
  
"You refer to an offhand quip I made about your brother and Lyanna Stark?"  
  
Dany nodded.  
  
Tyrion tore off another bit of bread and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully a moment before he spoke.  
  
"I neither love nor hate any of the players in this mummers' show. I had not quite reached ten name days when it played out. My interest is that of the objective historian. And what history says about Prince Rhaegar is that at worst, he was a kidnapper and a raper, and at best, a libertine who humiliated and betrayed his lady wife by running away with another woman. The mother of that boy you have belowdecks. Who watched Gregor Clegane bash the boy's head against the wall before he raped her to death."  
  
Dany gripped the seat of her chair to steady herself as the Imp's words, whether the truth or an invention meant to have precisely this effect on her, set her world even more askew than Jorah's betrayal had done. Her nails bore into the wood, and her teeth gritted together as she ground out, " _Your_ father's doing."  
  
Tyrion opened his stunted hands wide. "I killed my father."  
  
"How can you boast of that vile sin?"  
  
"You agree my father was a vile man, don't you? Why should it matter who executed justice?"  
  
"Jorah seems to have overlooked it," Dany said, the words not coming out with quite the degree of bitterness she had heard in her mind before she uttered them. "But he sold slaves. He spied on me--"  
  
"Until he became your protector," Tyrion said, and Dany sighed. It seemed she would have to hear about Jorah, after all, for she was too weary to send the Imp away. "Did you ever have so fierce and loyal a defender before you knew your bear?"  
  
"He protected me because he loved me."  
  
The pale eyebrows raised on the bulging forehead. "I should certainly hope so."  
  
"But before that, he was willing to sell me. And he did sell other people, for so small a crime as poaching from him."  
  
"It's a crime large enough to send a man to the Wall."  
  
Dany ignored him. "That's not a good man, worthy of a queen's love."  
  
Tyrion's lips curved in a slight smile instead of his usual smirk. It made him look wise, she thought. And kind. As one could only be wise and kind in the way that a man who had always lived life on the outside, watching, and who valued kindness all the more because it was so seldom shown to him. Well she understood that. There was not so great a distance between queen and _khaleesi_ and the lonely, frightened sister of the Beggar King.  
  
"If you don't know it already, Daenerys," he said, "you soon shall see that the world's not made up of good men and bad men. Just men."  
  
"Perhaps that means it's time for a woman to sit the Iron Throne."  
  
Tyrion snorted into his goblet. "My sweet sister would heartily agree with you there."  
  
He sat hunched and silent over his wine for so long that Dany began to think he had said his piece; but just as she was about to dismiss him and say she would summon him again to talk of dragons of the fire-breathing, winged variety, he spoke again.  
  
"You have found a man who loves you unswervingly, who would do anything for you. Do you know what a rare thing that is? I had it, once--difficult as that seems to believe. Even when I had a nose, mine wasn't a pretty face." His weird eyes darkened, and it seemed to Dany that he was looking at someone else. A ghost, in the corner of the room. "But it was taken from me, and I've searched but I know I won't ever find it again. _Wherever whores go_. You can't buy it, Your Grace. Not for all the gold on Casterly Rock."  
  
~*~  
  
Jorah's breath had not yet deepened to the even tempo of slumber when Dany, also sleepless, slipped from her bunk, her feet sinking soundlessly into the thick Myrish rug that covered the cabin floor where he slept.  
  
As she stepped into her sandsilk trousers, his voice raked through the heavy silence that blanketed them. "Where are you going?"  
  
Dany laced the front of her vest and glanced at the cradle to see that Rhaego, his bare rump in the air, had not stirred at the sound of voices. "For air."  
  
It was a lie--she meant to go down to the hold, where her prisoners were being held--but Jorah believed it readily enough, as was signified by the rustle of his blanket as he shucked it aside.  
  
"No," she said, as in the light filtering through the high windows she just made out the dark outline of his big hand reaching for the linen shirt that lay crumpled on the floor. "I do not wish for company." _But for that of Ser Barristan Selmy._  
  
Sighing heavily, Jorah dropped the shirt. But as Dany shuffled past him to the door, he caught her wrist and held her back. "We have to talk sometime, Daenerys."  
  
She blinked, hard, as if to hide the sudden spring of tears from the silhouette before her. They had been lurking ever since her earlier discussion with Tyrion, and for some reason every time Jorah had caught her eye they advanced further so that now his touch was nearly enough to batter the crumbling dam.  
  
"I know what _you_ would say," she snapped, jerking free of his grasp. "It is my own words that I am unsure of."  
  
"That's an improvement, I suppose," Jorah said as she darted out the door, Drogon flapping after her like an overlarge chicken, shutting it against whatever he said next.  
  
It was a relief to hear nothing but the scuff of her bare feet and the scrape of Drogon's talons on the rough-hewn planks as she scurried down into the deepest underbelly of the ship to the cargo hold. The bloodrider Makho, who had been Rakharo's brother, stood guard at the door.  
  
"Rouse the prisoners," she commanded him in Dothraki. "I would have a word."  
  
The three men were not sleeping when Makho admitted her; beneath the shifting pool of light cast by a swaying lantern, Tyrion perched on a low stool before a cyvasse board someone had procured for him--Jorah, perhaps?--his opponent, Griff, reaching through the iron bars of a cage to move his pieces about the playing field, and looked up at her as she approached, his eyes narrowing to purple slits of disdain. She ignored him--though Drogon flicked his tongue and hissed--and came to stand before the other caged man who bowed his head in deference to her, a grey roughspun blanket slipping from his shoulders as he pushed stiffly to his feet.  
  
"I am not certain whether I trust you, Ser Barristan," she said, though she was not a little bit touched by his attitude of respect, "but you are the only person I have ever met who knew my father. Was King Aerys called the Mad King because…" She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat since that afternoon, but it would not be dislodged. "…he was?"  
  
"As mad as you, _Your Grace_ ," Griff answered before the knight could speak, on his feet now, not in deference but defiantly gripping the bars of the cage. His eyes caught the lamplight. "Fire mad."  
  
"You will stay your wagging tongue," Dany replied, "or Makho there will do as I once saw my husband Khal Drogo DO, and tear it from your throat with his bare hands, so that I may cook it up for Drogon's supper. Dragons like their meat well done, you know."  
  
"I would be careful not to make his point for him, Your Grace," said Tyrion.  
  
Before Dany could rebuke him, Griff lashed out, " _Your Grace_? I thought you acknowledged me to be Prince Rhaegar's son. Where lies your loyalty, Imp?"  
  
"Why, outside that cage," Tyrion replied, smirking as Griff's foot shot between the bars, upending the cyvasse board.  
  
Ser Barristan's voice crackled out amidst the roll of the carved game pieces on the floor. "Aye, my queen. As bad as the rumors of him were, in life he was worse."  
  
It was not what he said but the way he said it, his dark eyes rich, his tone halting, more like a grandfather who hated to disappoint his granddaughter than a captive faced with delivering distasteful news to a queen, that made her believe him. That made her knees buckle beneath her so that she must grasp the bars of the cage to support herself, the tears sliding hotly down her cheeks as she pressed her forehead against the iron.  
  
"You are not like him," Selmy said. "You take after your mother, Queen Rhaella."  
  
"My mother?" Dany sniffed. No one ever spoke of her mother, so that she scarcely gave thought to the woman who had died to give her life.  
  
"She loved a knight, too. Ser Bonifer Hasty, who won a tourney and crowned her his Queen of Love and Beauty. He was deemed too lowborn for her, even if she had not been promised to Aerys."  
  
Dany's tears dried on her skin as she looked up at the wizened knight, her heart quickening in her breast. All her kin but Viserys had died before she was born, and now, for the first time, she had a sense that she knew one of them. Because she was like them. In a real and tangible way, not in the vague way in which Jorah said she was like her brother Rhaegar who, if Tyrion was to be believed, was not very like her, or who she wanted to be, at all.  
  
"You see, Aunt?" said Griff. "Your own mother knew that it is not for a queen to follow her heart, but to do her duty. She put aside her knight and married her king."  
  
"And suffered cruelly for it," Tyrion added. Dany looked down at him, and saw he wore the same kind and wise expression she had taken note of earlier. "According to Jaime, Aerys did not treat his wife gently."  
  
Though Dany didn't need to have the truth confirmed by Ser Barristan--she had felt the back of Viserys' hand, after all, as well as his open palm and his curled fist, not to mention the barbed lash of his tongue, which had been worse than the physical beatings he had dealt her--she looked to the knight, anyway. He hung his head and swallowed, an expression of distaste lining his aged face further.  
  
"The Kingsguard are privy to shameful secrets, my Princess."  
  
"What troubles might we have been spared," Tyrion mused, rubbing his stubbled chin, "if Rhaella Targaryen had been permitted to wed the knight she loved?"  
  
"You would never have been born, Daenerys," said Griff, glowering at Tyrion. "Nor would I."  
  
"The latter would leave no dispute as to my right to the Iron Throne," Dany replied.  
  
Griff's knuckles turned white as he gripped the bars of the catch. "No one has any _right_ to the Iron Throne except to sit it and do one's duty to one's people. Ser Barristan agrees. _Doesn't he_?"  
  
Selmy blanched. "I did not mean to imply that a monarch's desire is of greater import than duty."  
  
"I would never treat you in the abominable manner in which King Aerys treated Queen Rhaella," Griff went on. "I would honor and cherish you as my queen and the mother of my heirs."  
  
"I have a son," Dany replied. "The Stallion Who Mounts the World." She tried to imagine herself lying beneath Griff--should he be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt to be her brother's son. He was comely, to be sure, but he was a boy. Why, _she_ must have more experience in bed than he, and that was not at all a point in his favor. When he talked of duty and honor and cherishing, she could not imagine their intercourse being as passionate or pleasurable as the act of love was with Jorah. "And I have a husband."  
  
"Who betrayed you, and brought dishonor upon his own House and the whole of the North."  
  
Though she'd said the same herself, she bristled to hear judgment against Jorah fall from Griff's lips. Jorah had committed no crime for himself, but for love. And if he had not been exiled, he never would have gone to Pentos and become her protector. The Usurper would have found another spy, one who would not have spared her and her child. Or if another man had taken mercy on her, the _ko_ s would not, and Rhaego would still be dead and she would be with the crones…She would have no _Drogon_ …  
  
"Put him aside, Daenerys!" Griff's voice broke into her musing. "Do your duty and wed me, in the noble and ancient custom of House Targaryen."  
  
"Jorah and I spoke vows before the Seven that made us one heart, one soul, then and forever." Spittle glistened in the lamplight between the bars of the cell as she flung at him, "Cursed be the one who comes between us."


	30. Lines of Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany and Jorah reunite, while forces of nature drive the wedge even further between her and the man who claims to be her nephew.

Jorah still lay awake when Dany returned --sleep had eluded him for the better part of the fortnight at sea, and not merely because he had only a blanket and a thin cushion on the hard floor of her cabin for a bed; he'd slept soundly in worse conditions, including what passed for beds in the flea-ridden inns of Volantis--though she crept in with the stealth of a cat, so that he was unaware of her presence until she was straddling his supine body, pressing her lips to his.   
  
Moons had waxed and waned since he'd last kissed her, in Pentos, before she'd learned the truth of his betrayal, though when he had slept, he usually dreamed of doing so. He thought he must be dreaming now, but the details were too vivid: the cool whisper of sandsilk on either side of his bare thighs; her hair a silver cascade of perfume about his face; the perfect fit of his fingers between the notches of her spine. No, this was not a dream, and he groaned as her mouth left his to kiss his jaw and neck, her hot tongue darting out to taste his Adam's apple and the hollow between his collarbones, her hips rocking against his hardness.   
  
"Does this mean you trust me?" His husky tones rumbled against her lips on his throat.   
  
Dany lifted her head, her eyes ablaze with the moonlight in the slats of windows high in the wall above him. "I trust the gods. And they gave me you."  
  
In the past, such intimations about the gods laying the course of the path he'd trod from Bear Island to this moment had given Jorah pause; now, however, he was not about to question any line of thinking that allowed Dany to rationalize forgiving him. He was even willing to acknowledge that the Seven had indeed ordered his journey, if it ended with him returning her kiss with fervor and tugging the silken trousers down over his hips and digging his fingers into her arse as he guided her down onto his cock. Though it was, perhaps, the Imp to whom he owed his thanks, for whatever he'd said that convinced her to be reconciled.   
  
So long deprived of his wife as he had been, the moment of their joining was nearly enough to make Jorah spill into her. But he was no adolescent boy--not like this Griff or Aegon or whoever in the seven hells this boy was who thought he would make Daenerys a more suitable husband--and he held himself at the brink even as she moved, tight and tantalizing, up and down his length, while he fumbled at the laces of her vest, freeing her breasts from their leather confines so he could cup them in his hands. They were smaller than he remembered, and more supple between his fingers--from weaning the child, he supposed--but the change did not at all diminish his struggle for control when he pushed himself just enough upright that he could tilt his head to take one of the hardened brown nipples into his mouth, his lips smiling around it at her low groan of pleasure and the slow drive of her hips against his in response.   
  
Though they'd made love a hundred times and more during the year of their marriage, not once had Dany ridden him astride in this fashion. She'd _tried_ to, on a number of occasions, of which their wedding night had been one, but always before Jorah had taken care to roll their entwined bodies so that he dominated her. The power struggles that played out in their daily lives--queen and knight, man and wife--ended in bed; engaging in the act of love, he'd realized, was the one time in which Dany willingly submitted to him. His instinct was no different now, but he fought against that, as well. It seemed prudent to humble himself and let her have her way, this time.   
  
Not that humility was very near to his mind as this young woman of such impossible beauty, whom fire could not touch, set his senses ablaze with such pleasure as he was sure must consume him.   
  
As she brought him to his release, her name ripped from his throat with the same raw passion as the night he'd called to her in the flames. The cry startled Rhaego awake in his cradle. Laughing softly, Dany withdrew from Jorah to tend her son. She soothed him back to sleep quickly; Jorah was still struggling to catch his breath when she padded back to where he lay on the cabin floor, reaching her hand out to him and drawing him to his feet in the pool of moonlight, looking just as she had the morn she'd emerged from the ashes of their house with the red door.   
  
She led him to the narrow bunk, and when they were wrapped in each other's arms beneath the sheets, he whispered the question he'd longed to ask her since he returned to Valyria.   
  
"Why did you do it, Daenerys? The fire…Did my betrayal so shatter you that you wished for death?"  
  
Her head was tucked beneath his chin, and her fine hair tickled his chest as she shook her head slightly. "I did it because something deep inside me said that I must." Dany raised her head, leaning back in the circle of his arms to look up at him. "Do you think I'm mad, Jorah? It's in my blood, after all. Fire and madness."   
  
Truth be told, the thought had crossed his mind--and not only when she was within the inferno. In some ways her calm afterward had been even more unsettling, the way she acted as if no one ought to be alarmed about what she had done, because those flames had hatched her dragon. Embracing her slight frame once again, hooking his leg around her, too, as if to enfold all of her, he released a breath he felt he'd been holding for the past fortnight.   
  
"You can't be, or you wouldn't ask that question," he said between kisses under her ear, down the line of her neck to her collarbone. He remembered a vow he had once sworn in his heart, which was time to make aloud. "I won't let you be. So long as you allow me to remain by your side."   
  
"Then it seems we've arrived at a truce." Dany's words were a hot kiss to his chest. "For I will never let you leave."  
  
~*~  
  
 _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ ought to have sailed from Valyria to Qarth within the span of a moon's turning, but the autumn storms which Dany said had delayed her voyage from Pentos continued to plague them even this far south, violent winds battering the vessel and blowing them far off course. Jorah would have been anxious about encountering pirates and slavers out of Astapor that prowled the waters off the coast of the southern continent--if he had not been too preoccupied with being sick belowdecks as the ship was tossed about on the waves like a toy boat in a rambunctious child's bath. They all were--the Dothraki _and_ their horses, the prisoners, whose illness, Tyrion complained loudly, was compounded by the stench of horse shit that pervaded the hold, even Captain Groleo and the crew--everyone, except for Daenerys and her children, both of them, who must have inherited her Stormborn constitution, she remarked as she tended the sick with a good cheer that even Jorah had found slightly irritating.   
  
Her turn came, though--oddly enough, the first day they emerged from the confines of the ship's belly, onto the main deck. Breathing in the fresh sea air soon revived the pale complexions of the ill, but after only a moment of watching Drogon test his wings, Dany turned green; she released Rhaego's hand as he toddled along beside her, bolted for the railing, and retched over the side of the ship.   
  
"Stormborn," said Tyrion Lannister, sidling up to her with a quirked eyebrow, "but apparently not Calmborn. How typical of a Targaryen."  
  
Dany turned her haggard face to him and attempted a smile, clearly having acquired a taste for the Imp's brand of humor--though not of vomit; she dabbed at the corners of her mouth, and Jorah, occupied with stopping Rhaego from scrabbling up a coil of rope to the side of the ship, bid one of the handmaids to fetch the _khaleesi_ a cup of water.   
  
"It's true enough that the members of my House are blessed with extraordinary health in all circumstances," Dany said. "I cannot recall ever being ill in my life, nor my brother Viserys, and we wandered homeless and hungry in the streets of the Free Cities, where disease ran rampant."  
  
"If only Viserys' health had been able to withstand the ill-effects of molten gold," muttered Griff, standing nearby with Ser Barristan Selmy and their Dothraki guard, Makho, watching Drogon belch flame at a passing seagull and then swoop down after the falling ball of fire.  
  
Dany was drinking from the waterskin Jhiqui had brought her, but sputtered on it as she rounded on the young man, the look of haughty rage on her face reminding Jorah strongly of the brother who had met that ill fate. Her tone, however, was low compared to Viserys' unbridled rage.   
  
"Are you blood of the dragon, that _you_ might wear such a golden crown? By all accounts, you were the first to succumb to greensickness."   
  
"And you were the last," Griff flung back at her, two dark spots of color on his high cheekbones. "This proves _nothing_."  
  
"Good work, Imp," Jorah muttered to Tyrion, "setting them to squabbling like a pair of siblings."  
  
Tyrion grinned up at him, reaching up to gently pinch Rhaego's nose and feign stealing it for himself, a game of which the child never tired. "Just trying to feel a little more at home among my new companions."  
  
"Peace, Sire," Selmy was beseeching Griff. "If you do not acknowledge Daenerys as Queen, at least afford her the respect as the lady who holds your life in the balance. Who did you the same kindness as her friends, in allowing you abovedecks after our long confinement."  
  
"Thank you, Ser Barristan," said Dany, throwing back her shoulders and lifting her chin. "That is most chivalrous. And I will overlook Griff's attitude as one of the lingering effects of his illness."  
  
Jorah watched Griff's lilac eyes narrow, but felt a tug at his sleeve and inclined his head as Tyrion muttered, "At least you needn't worry about losing your wife to the younger, prettier man, Ser Bear, as she seems keen on making him loathe her."  
  
"Tyrion," said Dany, sharply, her braid whipping Griff across the face as she whirled around. "Jorah tells me you have a plan for getting my dragon's egg back from Xaro Xhoan Daxos. I would hear it, if you please."  
  
"Oh, I do please," he replied. "Though it would please me even more if Your Grace would hold her council at table? My mind is so much quicker when my belly is full, you see. Even if it is only full of maggoty hard tack and salt pork that's likely as not to make me empty it again an hour later."  
  
"Daenerys?" Jorah shifted Rhaego to one arm, raising his free hand to touch her cheek as her gaze drifted to the rail of the ship; he found her pale skin clammy to the touch--before she shrugged away from it.   
  
"Very well," she said. "Jhiqui, Doreah, will you mind Rhaego? And Makho, escort our young prisoner back to the hold. "Ser Barristan? I should like you to join my council."  
  
"As my lady commands," the old knight replied.   
  
"The Princess was right not to trust you, Selmy!" bellowed Griff as the bloodrider dragged him toward the ladder that led down to the hold. "You will serve whomever suits you."   
  
A twitch in the wrinkled cheek was Selmy's only reaction, though Jorah wondered whether the boy's words recalled the humiliation Joffrey Baratheon had done him in relieving him from the lifetime of sworn service to the Kingsguard.   
  
"I serve the true heir to the throne," Selmy said, offering Dany a hand to descend belowdecks. "I do not know whether it is you or he, but Griff was raised to believe it as surely as you were, my lady."  
  
"The difference," Dany replied, "is that everyone fighting for the crown in Westeros would as soon kill me as look at me. They might at least laugh at Griff."   
  
"The Golden Company fights for him," Barristan reminded her, drawing out the chair at the head of the table in the galley, onto which Jorah noted she sank heavily as he took the seat to her right. "Even now fifty score may march on Westeros flying the banners of Aegon the Sixth."  
  
"Perhaps they may unwittingly assist me in subduing the Lannister and Baratheon forces," said Dany; she raised the wine that had been poured for her to her lips, but did not drink, making a face into the goblet before setting it once more on the table. "And my Dothraki will have only to sweep the Seven Kingdoms of ten thousand sellswords. Khal Jhogo," she said to the swarthy figure looming in the doorway of the galley, his heavily pregnant wife at his side. "How many riders are in your _khalasar_ , awaiting my command in Oros?"  
  
"Twenty thousand and more, _Khaleesi_." His intonation of the Common Tongue of Westeros was so guttural as to be scarcely more intelligible than Dothraki to those in their company who did not speak it, but his meaning was conveyed nonetheless.   
  
"And three dragons," Dany added.   
  
"And together they'll be just as likely to sweep the Golden Company out of the Seven Kingdoms with thirty thousand brooms, Your Grace, without a fleet to carry them across the Narrow Sea," said Tyrion. Across the table from Jorah, he fell upon his salt pork and hard tack with the same ravening appetite that Drogon had devoured his blackened seagull, with no regard whatsoever might have been crawling on it thanks to their extended voyage. "You've more to ask from this Qartheen merchant prince than just your egg."  
  
To Jorah's surprise, Dany did not readily respond. She leaned against the back of her chair, and she'd gone even paler than before. At first he thought she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the Imp's glibness, then he wondered if perhaps it was a more visceral reaction to the maggots. Under the table, he reached for her hand where it rested in her lap, giving it a gentle squeeze in inquiry. Her fingers gave his palm a press in return, and she sat up a little straighter.   
  
"How do you propose I obtain a fleet from Xaro Xhoan Daxos?" she asked.   
  
All eyes were on the Imp, who seemed to be trying to live up to the moniker as he took his time chewing and swallowing and drinking, grinning all the while and clearly enjoying the attention.   
  
"Well," he said at last, "your lord husband tells me that this Xaro fellow asked for your royal hand even though he prefers the company of men. I thought perhaps if we offered him Aegon…"  
  
"Abomination!" Barristan blurted out.   
  
"He jests, I think, good ser," said Dany, with only the faintest of smiles.   
  
"Consider this his application to be your fool, not a member of your small council," Jorah joked, but she did not seem to hear, and her fingers had slackened in his.   
  
And then, before he could tell her to put a stop to this and retire to her cabin for a rest, she pushed her chair so violently back from the table that it toppled over; she just managed to vault over it in time to fall to her hands and knees in the corner, where, luckily, a swabbing bucket had been left. Jorah crouched beside her, holding her braid out of the way and supporting her trembling frame as her stomach seemed hells-bent on making up for the vomiting it had not done during the month of storms.   
  
"I hope Your Grace will understand if none of us believes your claims of never being ill," Tyrion drawled over the retching sounds.   
  
Jorah turned to bellow at him to shut up lest he find his maggoty ship's rations harder to chew short another tooth, when Irri piped in:   
  
" _Khaleesi_ have weak stomach before. When she have Stallion Who Mounts World inside her."  
  
 _That_ shut the Imp up. And, apparently, calmed Dany's stomach.   
  
Jorah's, on the other hand, had never roiled more queasily.   
  
"Daenerys…" He touched her cheek, turning her face to look at him. "You're not…"  
  
She smiled, tremulously, flecks of sick and saliva crusted on her lips and chin. "Irri's right," she croaked. "I _was_ ill when I carried Rhaego…"   
  
Jorah remembered her slipping from her silver's back to be sick in the Dothraki Sea; he'd wanted to kneel beside her then and comfort her, but that had not been his place.   
  
"And I had my moon's blood the night Drogon was born," she went on. "But not since…"  
  
" _Now_ my appetite is spoiled," said Tyrion, his plate scraping across the table as he pushed it back from himself. "Much like the meat…" He slid out of his chair and waddled over to Jorah, giving him a congratulatory clasp on the shoulder. "You don't mess about, do you, Ser Bear? And just think--if Griff _isn't_ the real Aegon, your little cub will be King of the Seven Kingdoms."


	31. Unraveling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany returns to Qarth, and nothing goes according to plan.

"Careful now--mind your step," Jorah said as he turned to assist his wife down the gangplank of _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_.   
  
Dany placed her hand in his upturned palm, but gave him a bemused smile, as well. "I hope you'll be as gallant when I'm a great lumbering cow nine moons hence."  
  
"I will." He pictured her, fierce and radiant and heavier with his child than she had been with Drogo's, now that her lifestyle was not so active nor her diet so lean, and couldn't stop himself grinning. He drew her hand to his lips, brushing them across her knuckles. "But you will never be a cow."  
  
"It is well we go to visit Xaro Xhoan Daxos," Dany replied, her eyes dancing like a ripple of sunlight on the waves in the harbor. "He has mastered the art of the pretty compliment."   
  
"But not the sincere one. Daenerys?" Jorah's grip tightened on her hand; the laughter had gone out of her eyes as if a cloud had passed over the face of the sun, her gaze drifting over his shoulder. He turned, instinctively thrusting his arm out in front of her, as he found himself looking down at a red-cloaked figure whose face was obscured by a red-lacquered wooden mask.   
  
" _Quaithe_ ," Dany breathed.   
  
"The Priestess of Asshai," Jorah muttered.   
  
"Priestess of Asshai?" Tyrion Lannister pushed his way through the party disembarking the ship, waddling up to Quaithe without hesitation. "There's one of your people warming Stannis Baratheon's bed in Westeros. Let me think, what is her name? Melora or Maleficent or…Melisandre! Yes, that's it. They say she's very terrible and very red, but I never heard any one mention a mask. It's a nice touch."  
  
The Imp may as well have not spoken, for all the attention Quaithe paid him. The bright eyes peering through the slits were as unmoving as the wooden mask itself , fixed on Dany's midsection, as if gazing through cloth and flesh into her womb itself. Jorah laid his open palm on the belly that thus far still showed no signs of her pregnancy, his thoughts turning to the day not a fortnight past, when they'd first suspected his child grew within her.   
  
"Are you pleased, Jorah?" she'd asked as they lay curled together in their narrow bunk, her small hand covering his hand where it cupped her breast and drawing it down to her stomach. "To be the father of kings?"  
  
"Of princes," he'd corrected her, and pressed a kiss to her ear. "And princesses. Rhaego will be king."   
  
Squirming as he'd kissed her again, his beard prickling the sensitive skin of her neck, Dany persisted, "Rhaego will be the Stallion Who Mounts the World."  
  
"And he is my son."  
  
"But not your seed."   
  
Jorah had pushed up on his elbow, then, gently turning Dany so that she lay on her back and he could peer into her eyes--or he could have done, if the cabin had not been too dark. At the same time, he'd been glad she couldn't see the suspicion that must surely line his face--though he'd known she must hear it in his voice.   
  
"What is this line of questioning?" he'd asked. "Do you mean to trap me into confessing that I'll love a son of my body better than the one who is not?"  
  
Dany's flare of temper had not been evident to him on her face in the dark, but, perched at the head of their bed, two spots like glowing embers appeared where Drogon's nostrils would be, his smoke hazy pale grey against the dark.   
  
Her reply had been mild. "I know you will give no preference to one over the other. But your love will be _different_."   
  
She'd placed her hand over his on her belly again, pressing his palm into her, as if she could make him feel the tiny stirring of life within. Remembering how that first night of the journey that led them to this moment had begun with feeling Rhaego jostle about inside her, Jorah's heart had leapt within his ribs with the anticipation of the day this babe would make his--or her--presence known in so tangible a way. He'd leant his head down toward Dany and felt her smile against his cheek as she'd brushed her lips across it.   
  
"I only wanted to know, my bear, if you are pleased that, whatever titles they have, your sons and daughters shall be the highest lords and ladies of the land."   
  
Jorah had laid down again, drawing his wife's back against him and burying his face in her loose-flowing hair; in truth, the knowledge of Dany's pregnancy, an event for which he'd longed since the peaceful months of marriage in Valyria, during which her quest for the Iron Throne had been at an end, had filled him as much with foreboding as with joy, when he considered it in light of her current pursuit of her dragon's eggs and ongoing dispute with Griff over who was the rightful heir. Perhaps it was because his own aspirations had never been for anything more than the home he loved on Bear Island and the love of a good woman, but the last thing he would wish for his children would be to spend their lives as pawns or even kings and queens in this game, as their parents had been. But for that period in Valyria, Dany had known no other life.   
  
"I'm pleased to be a father," he'd told her, and released a long breath and the tension in his shoulders. "I would be even if still we wandered poor in exile. Though pleased hardly goes far enough. It's..." His voice had caught. "…all I ever wanted."   
  
He hadn't needed to see Dany's face to know that his answer more than satisfied her; she'd wriggled her hips, pushing her arse against him so that he grew hard against her.   
  
"Are you certain you want _nothing_ more?" she'd asked, her voice dropping to a low, coy pitch.   
  
"There is one thing," Jorah had said, and when Dany had rocked back into him again, he'd somehow managed not to push her onto her back at once, and said, "Not to have to attend the birth this time."  
  
"But you proved a most capable midwife." Dany's reply had not been quite as playful as he'd thought it would be, and her grip on his hand had tightened a great deal, almost as an echo of the night she'd delivered Rhaego. "I…I think I will want you with me again."  
  
He had turned her onto her back, then--not to act upon his desires, but to look at her, his eyes straining to make out her features in the watery moonlight coming in through the porthole windows.   
  
"You are not… _frightened_ of giving birth again? You, Daenerys, who delivered Rhaego as if you'd borne a dozen babes already?" He thought, but did not say, _Who stood unflinchingly among flames and hatched Drogon?_  
  
"I was terrified. Didn't I look it?"  
  
"Perhaps my own terror kept me from seeing yours." He kissed her forehead. "If you ask it of me, I will be there by your side. The only thing that could keep me from you would be your Dothraki maids' insistence that it's unlucky for a man to be present in the birthing chamber."   
  
"Or your kinswomen, rather," had come Dany's reply.   
  
"My kinswomen?"  
  
"Gods be good, your child will be born in your hall on Bear Island."  
  
 _Gods be good_ …Jorah certainly had never entertained the possibility of the Seven's benevolence more strongly than as he had made love to his wife that night. He even vowed that as soon as ever they came to a place where the Seven were worshiped, he would go into the Sept and offer prayers of thanks to them for ordering his steps--even the ones that had brought shame to his name and his House.   
  
Now, however, as he stared into the face obscured by the red mask, he was more inclined to believe as he had been more used to: that the gods were not good.  
  
Not to him.   
  
"To go north," Quaithe intoned, "you must journey south. To reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back--"  
  
"Is that how they say _I told you so_ in Asshai?" Jorah spat. "Gloat all you want, Priestess--we went north and west, but here we are again. We've come back. This time, with a dragon."  
  
"--and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."  
  
Dany stepped out from behind Jorah's arm. "We will not go to Asshai. My journey to the Seven Kingdoms ends here in Qarth."  
  
Though Jorah misliked how Quaithe pierced Dany with her gaze, he found himself powerless to do or say anything to break the moment of connection. Indeed, he would have been grateful for one of the Imp's ill-timed witticisms, but the priestess seemed to hold all the party on the gangplank behind them transfixed as though by some devilry.   
  
"You have chosen the more difficult road," came her disembodied voice from behind the mask, "hidden by darker shades than Asshai-by-the-Shadow."  
  
Her eyes flicked to Jorah, and he nearly cried out because it was like looking into the dark and twisted corridors of the House of the Undying, and like the black, suffocating wings of crows. He shut his eyes against the image, telling himself that it was all just a nightmare, only a dream, like so many he'd had since last they were in this city.   
  
When he opened them again some moments later, the Red Priestess of Asshai was gone.  
  
~*~  
  
"Daenerys Targaryen," greeted Xaro Xhoan Daxos as the queen and her entourage boarded his pleasure barge. Apart from Jorah, she had brought Khal Jhogo and his three bloodriders, Tyrion Lannister, Ser Barristan Selmy, the prisoner Griff-- boarded the merchant prince's pleasure barge. Drogon came with them, too, wearing a collar about his neck attached ludicrously to a lead which Dany held as if he were no more than a large pet dog.   
  
"Sit, sit," Daxos bid them, gesturing with a sweep of his bejeweled hand.   
  
Dany did not move, nor did Jorah, seeing at once that this was no pleasant reunion of old friends, as their host undoubtedly wanted them to believe from the low table laden with delicacies beneath the shade of a canopy. Apart from the aura of distrust Daxos always exuded, the cushions on which he reclined--and from which he did not arise at his guests' arrival--were situated on the lower deck of the barge, with the rowers, rather than above where he'd presided the last time Dany and Jorah had been here as his guests. Tyrion, however, felt no such compunction, and broke rank to make himself comfortable on the cushions, to the bemusement of the serving boys who began to ply him with food and drink after a nod from their master.  
  
"You will forgive me," Daxos said, "if I do not stand before Your Imminence. My legs are not what they were when last we supped together. Though my charm, I think, surpasses it."   
  
With a glance up at Jorah, Dany settled in the place of honor at Daxos' right hand, Drogon at her back, his serpentine neck looped around her so that his head rested on her shoulder between her and her host. As Jorah took his seat on her other side, he noted with no small amount of relief that she did not look at all charmed by the merchant prince--for though he felt secure in the renewed fervor of their love, he could not forget that she had for a time contemplated the offer of Daxos' hand in marriage--nor did she make polite inquiries as to what ailed his leg.  
  
Not that Daxos needed to be coaxed to talk about himself.   
  
"I always knew you would return to me," he said, leaning on his right elbow, his body inclined close to her, as he sipped a goblet of green nectar from Myr. "Though I had hoped, not _actually_ married to your bear knight rather than merely pretending to be his wife."  
  
Around a mouthful of olives, Tyrion quipped, "It seems youg Griff there is not the only one thwarted in love."   
  
"Love has naught to do with it," muttered Griff, his arms firmly in the grasp of his two Dothraki guards.  
  
"Poetic license," said Tyrion. " _Thwarted in duty_ doesn't sound nearly so pretty."   
  
Daxos' gaze had been on Dany's breast, bared by the Qartheen-style gown in Targaryen blood red--which Tyrion had earlier remarked would have allowed her to pass for a Lannister, if only her eyes had been green--but his eyes did not darken with lust until they raked over Griff. Jorah couldn't stop himself smirking as he remembered Tyrion's suggestion that they trade the lad for the egg--and how appalled Barristan Selmy had been by the jape.  
  
"I suppose I must call you _Prince_ Jorah now?" Daxos abruptly turned the conversation back to the direction he had intended it before Tyrion interrupted; the jewels in his nose glittered with the same irritation as shined in his eyes.   
  
"Lord Mormont will do," Jorah replied.   
  
Daxos threw back his head and laughed. "Lord of what? You may have married a queen, but she has no lands. And until she does, neither do you, my exile knight. My wandering prince."  
  
The fire of Drogon's flesh burned through the sleeve of Jorah's tunic as Dany sat a little more upright, forcing her dragon to unwind from around her.   
  
"My ancestor Aegon the Conquerer would argue that the one who holds all the dragons holds all the lands."  
  
"Ah," said Daxos, "but you don't hold _all_ the dragons, do you? That's why you have returned to Xaro, is it not, sweetling?"  
  
" _Her Grace_ ," Jorah reminded the man in a growl.   
  
"What Prince Jorah means to say," Tyrion cut in, wiping his hands on a linen, "is that Her Grace has prepared most generous trade agreements to benefit the Thirteen--and especially Xaro Xhoan Daxos--in exchange for the dragon's egg." He paused for Daxos' reaction, adding, when there was none, "Or perhaps the lad, if you prefer?"  
  
Daxos' gaze drifted not unwillingly to Griff. "I thought you had no living relations, Your Grace?"  
  
"I am her nephew, my lord--" Griff said, struggling in futility against the Dothraki.   
  
"He _claims_ to be my nephew," Dany said.   
  
"The son of her elder brother Prince Rhaegar, long believed to be dead."  
  
"He has no proof of it."   
  
"Aside from your best features?" Daxos smirked. "Well--I suppose your _prince_ ranks other features more highly than your uncommonly beautiful hair and eyes."  
  
"I don't think his _mind_ has much to do with that feature," said Tyrion--fortunately for him, Jorah was giving Daxos so many murderous glances that he had none to spare for the Imp.  
  
Once again, Daxos' head fell back with a laugh from his belly. "I'd say throw in the dwarf, and I'd accept your offer, but alas…I already traded your egg for a pair of lame legs."  
  
Dany's skin went pale as death against the red of her gown. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, my pretty little queen, that when your Captain Groleo sent a raven to me announcing the birth of your scaly son, I paid a little call on our mutual friend Pyat Pree. I meant to come into the possession of two eggs."  
  
As Jorah silently cursed himself for not considering that Groleo might have been reporting back to his former master, Dany slumped back against Drogon, wrapping her arms protectively about him as if he were a spindly toddling child like Rhaego, and not a beast bigger than herself who peered dangerously at Daxos through golden slits of eyes, smoke snaking out from his nostrils and between the fangs that extended over his lower jaw. "But instead the warlock now holds two of my children."   
  
"We should return at once to your ship, my queen," said Jorah, pushing to his feet; when she resisted his tug on her elbow, he explained, "You have no ally here, Daenerys. It's plain that he didn't visit Pyat Pree in a chivalrous attempt at retrieving the egg to give it back to you."  
  
Daxos' lips curled upward as he sipped from his goblet of nectar. "I recently heard that a king said he who holds all the dragons holds all the lands. A merchant prince said that he who holds all the lands holds all the trade agreements."  
  
Dany lifted her head, her expression mirroring the dragon's as mother and child glowered at Daxos. "Traitor."  
  
"Mm. Though that's a sin, I hear, of which the Dragon Queen is especially forgiving?" The jewels in his nose seemed to wink at Jorah as Dany stood, inhaling long and slow.   
  
"Fascinating," said Tyrion. "Drogon's breathing smoke and Daenerys looks likely to. Picking up on his mother's mood, is he?"  
  
"Your Dothraki army cannot all fly to Westeros on the backs of your dragons any more than they may cross the Narrow Sea astride their horses," Daxos said as Jorah pulled Dany away from the table, looking impotent as he lay there, crippled, upon the cushions. "You still have need of a fleet, Daenerys. I would not burn bridges--"  
  
" _Barges_ , I think you mean," said Tyrion, as Drogon reared back, his mouth yawning for an instant, and then vomiting fire.   
  
The curtained pavilion shading the table at once ignited, and all of Dany's party and the serving boys scrambled out from under it to avoid being burnt. Daxos, however, laid there, attempting to drag himself over the table with his arms, but not succeeding. One doughty lad eyed the burning flaming drapes warily, then ducked beneath to go to his master, but the blur of indigo and silver that darted past them, tugging at the unburned ends of the curtains until they came loose from the pergola and then shunting the bundle overboard, was Griff.   
  
"Grab the dragon!" Jorah shouted to the bloodriders as he sheltered Dany from the blaze in the furthest corner of the deck. "His lead! Grab the lead!"  
  
Drogon poised for another round of fire, and the bloodriders shied away, their eyes white with terror like spooked horses'. Ser Barristan Selmy leapt in front of them--it was not for nothing that men called him Barristan the Bold--heedless of what bodily damage he was likely to sustain from dragonfire. Luckily he beast did not breathe flame, but neither was Selmy able to catch him; for Drogon unfurled his leathern wings, beat the air, and then, with a shriek, pushed off from his perch on the railing--which cracked beneath his weight--and took flight, swooping up, up above the river.   
  
For a moment he--like everyone onboard Xaro Xhoan Daxos' pleasure barge--stood panting as the charred remains of the fabric sank beneath the river, steaming, and Drogon disappeared among the towers and parapets of Qarth. Then he rounded on Dany, the fire seemingly not extinguished after all, but instead burning in the lilac depths of his eyes.   
  
"That beast is out of control!" he bellowed into her face before the Dothraki guards leapt to restrain him once more. Even then he was undaunted. "And so are you!"  
  
"I did not command Drogon to wreak this destruction!"   
  
"No, but neither did you stay him. Nor did you stay your own heart from trusting whom it ought not, or loving whom it ought not." He shot a fiery glower at Jorah, and then down at Dany's belly. "You have bound your heart to this man--this slaver, this _spy_ \--when it ought to have been bound to your kingdom."   
  
"As is yours?"  
  
"Yes," Griff said, his chest puffing out as he drew back his shoulders, head held high even as the Dothraki bound his wrists behind him. "As is mine."  
  
And though Jorah would never have said so to Dany, in that moment he could believe that the boy was Rhaegar's son.   
  
That he was the king.   
  
Dany's jaw muscle rippled beneath the skin of her cheek as she ground her teeth. "Very well then," she said, turning in a swirl of her blood red gown to disembark Xaro Xhoan Daxos' pleasure barge. "We shall see how undying is your love for the Seven Kingdoms when you retrieve my children from Pyat Pree."


	32. The Undying Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the House of the Undying, Dany learns who her captive--and her child--really are, and what that will mean for her conquest.

"This is madness."   
  
As Dany stepped out from the sheltering black-barked, blue-leaved trees and into the clearing where the House of the Undying stood, Jorah caught her round the wrist and drew her back alongside him. Instinctively she tried to pull away from him, but one look at the grey ruin was enough to remind her of how he had been trapped within the crumbling façade and the nightmare visions housed there, of how she had rescued him from it only for him to lay for weeks in the relentless hold of troubled sleep, and she surrendered to the grip of his fingers.   
  
She did not, however, concede to his opinion. "Madness, Jorah? When I asked before if you thought I was mad, you told me I was not. Or was that a gallant lie told to appease your lady wife?"  
  
The muscle beneath Jorah's cheekbone twitched as he spoke through gritted teeth. " _You_ are not mad, Daenerys, but this plan…"   
  
"It's half-baked," Tyrion Lannister finished for him--insolently, though he made Dany a slight bow. " _Your Grace_."  
  
"Aye. That is my thought as well," Jorah said, and before she could argue, he went on, "We are but two knights--" This with a glance at Ser Barristan Selmy, astride his horse ahead of Khal Jhogo and his bloodriders who guarded the boy Griff. "--and four Dothraki warriors."  
  
"And a dwarf who's a dab hand with battleaxe and crossbow, if only you saw fit to give me one or the other. I see you've allowed Ser Barristan a sword."  
  
"Even if we had the whole twenty thousand of Khal Jhogo's riders," Jorah went on, ignoring the Imp, "I am not certain _they_ would be a match against the warlocks, let alone we six."  
  
"Seven," Tyrion interjected.  
  
"We don't know what they are capable of," Jorah said.  
  
Dany let out her breath slowly through her nose. "Which is precisely why I'm not setting you six against them. Though I'm tempted to revise my plan and send in the dwarf with his axe."  
  
She expected to see Tyrion's cheeky grin, but instead his weird gaze fixed on her with all appropriate gravity due the situation.  
  
"Your current plan to send Griff in and let him prove whether he really is Ageon or perish is very tidy and convenient for you," he said. "But even if he _does_ bear up against the sorcery better than Ser Jorah did, you will have two unhatched eggs, while Pyat Pree will have had time to capture Drogon."  
  
Jorah's eyes flicked from Dany's to scan what little of the pinky violet dawn sky was visible through the canopy of blue leaves. "I say our first priority is to find the beast--"  
  
"Drogon is my _child_."   
  
"Your child," Jorah said, tearing his gaze from overhead, "who burned the Temple of Memory and carried off the sacrifices for his supper."  
  
Dany couldn't resist the tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "I remember _you_ scoffed at the sacrificial altar when Xaro showed us the city before. Perhaps that is where Drogon learned his contempt for religion."  
  
Tyrion snorted. "Do you foster any fatherless creature that comes your way, Ser Ber?"  
  
"Quiet, Imp."  
  
"I will not abandon the other two." Dany's smile faltered as her heart, heavy as a stone, seemed to drop into her stomach. "I _cannot_."  
  
"What about Rhaego?" Jorah asked.   
  
His gauntleted hand settled even heavier on her shoulder, turning her to face him. She stared at the toes of her sturdy Dothraki riding sandals, unwilling to meet Jorah's gaze, lest he sway her with his.   
  
"What if we should die here today?" he went on. "He is your child, too, and unlike the dragons, will feel what it is to be an orphan. Think of him, Daenerys." His other hand settled for an instant on her hip before his fingertips skimmed over her belly. "Think of _our_ babe."  
  
Her head snapped up. "They are _all_ I think of. If I am to give them a kingdom--"  
  
"What about a _life_?" Both his big hands curled around her slight shoulders now, gripping hard; he gave her a little shake, but she stood firm, her chest swelling with the ire that roiled in her breast.   
  
"Yes, Jorah-- _life_. For the child in my womb and the child I have borne and for the dragons I have and will hatch--all five of them. Pyat Pree!" she shouted, and as Jorah's hands fell away from her shoulders, his right hand unsheathing his greatsword, she strode toward the House of the Undying. "It is I, Daenerys Targaryen, called Stormborn, and Mother of Dragons! I have returned--"  
  
She was cut off by a rippling in the wood. At first she thought was the wind raking its fingers through the treetops, but then she realized the morn was as still as the moment before a storm, and that the sound had swelled to the pitch of a human voice, laughing. Instantly she recognized the laughter as Pyat Pree's, though she could not see the warlock anywhere; the blue leaves clinging to their branches shuddered exactly as she remembered his blue lips doing when they contorted into his mocking smile.   
  
"Mother of only one dragon, I think, Daenerys."  
  
"He's got a point," said Tyrion.   
  
Glowering at Tyrion because Pyat Pree was nowhere to be seen, she repeated, "I have returned to reclaim what you've stolen from me!"  
  
"And what do you offer in return, Dragon Queen?"   
  
The leaves ceased their shivering, though a chill coursed down Dany's spine in the silence that ensued, so complete that it made her question whether it had ever been broken at all…whether Pyat Pree's voice had existed only in her imagination…whether she had, indeed, gone mad.   
  
_Perhaps I am mad_ , she thought, at the same instant as she heard her own voice utter, "If you will let this boy seek my two eggs…" Out the corner of her eye, she saw her own hand raise and her beckon Khal Jhogo to bring forth Griff, his hands bound before him though he came along willingly enough--had done, in fact, since their altercation on Xaro Xhoan Daxos' pleasure barge. "…then I will not trouble yours as they search for my dragon."  
  
"An intriguing proposition." The warlock's voice seemed to sound from close by now, though whether to her right or to her left, before her or behind, Dany could not say. She kept her eyes trained on the House of the Undying, as if Pyat Pree were standing on the crumbling stoop. "What if we should both succeed?"  
  
"Make no bargains with this trickster," Jorah said, his voice low--as if he thought it out of hearing of the unseen warlock. His gloved fingertips grazed Dany's elbow as she marched forward, beyond his reach. "Daenerys--"  
  
"Then you shall have a grown dragon," she answered Pyat Pree, "and I shall have two unhatched eggs."  
  
She would have sworn she saw smiling blue lips as the warlock's voice filled the wood.   
  
"And if I should succeed before you do?"  
  
Dany swallowed, hard. "Then Drogon and his unborn brothers shall be yours."  
  
"No." Leaves crackled beneath Jorah's boots as his long, swift strides carried him at once to her side. "I will not stand by and watch you agree to this folly."  
  
"Folly now, is it?" She turned to him, a wry smile twisting her mouth. "I suppose I would prefer to be a fool than a madwoman."   
  
" _Daenerys_ ," Jorah said through his teeth.   
  
She touched her fingertips to his lips. "Peace, my fierce bear. Drogon will answer no call but his mother's. _Trust me_."  
  
For a moment his eyes burned into her, and she felt his lips part in argument, but then, with a slight nod of his head, he drew back from her, standing guard over her right shoulder, sword at the ready.   
  
"Unbind him," she bid Jhogo, and she heard the _snick_ of his _arakh_ as it cut the ropes about Griff's wrists. "Are you ready to learn what blood flows through your veins?"  
  
"As ready as you are." His lilac eyes met hers, and Dany felt that she had looked into a mirror, or into the past, or into the eyes of a ghost.   
  
At once she averted her gaze, and was almost relieved to see Quaithe's red lacquered mask at Griff's shoulder, to have the red priestess' trickery on which to lay blame for the disturbing comparison.   
  
"Why have you come, Quaithe of Asshai?"   
  
Seemingly from nowhere, and without moving, the priestess procured a phial of liquid the color of the trees.   
  
"Shade of the Evening," she told Griff. "To open your mind to the truths inside."  
  
Dany steeled her body against a shiver that rippled down her spine at the eerie similarity of the present scene to the one that had played out when last she stood here, when she'd sent Jorah into the House of the Undying to rescue her other babe from his kidnapper.  
  
"Blue lips tell lies," she said, as he had then. "Though perhaps that is apt for one who makes so audacious a claim as to be Prince Rhaegar's son."  
  
The taunt did not break Griff's wary gaze from the phial, and to Dany's greater surprise, Jorah said, "Drink it, lad." He went on, in tones that were gruff, but not unkind, "I have oft wondered whether my errand here would have been more successful had I done. Or my sleep easier."  
  
Without hesitation Griff tilted his head back and swallowed the Shade of the Evening. When he'd emptied the phial, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, but even so his lips retained the indigo stain. As Quaithe gave him further instruction for how to proceed through the warlocks' lair, his eyes fixed on Dany; she was relieved to see that they reflected the deep hue of his lips rather than their usual Targaryen color.   
  
A glance up at Jorah showed _his_ eyes to hold a more worried expression than Dany felt was justified as he watched Griff stride into the House of the Undying.   
  
"You think I should not have sent him," she said. "Do you believe he truly is Rhaegar's heir?"  
  
Though Jorah hesitated for only the briefest of moments, it was long enough for anger to flicker to life in Dany's breast, even before he answered.   
  
"I believe the halls of that place are for no man to tread but a warlock."  
  
"He is no man. He is an arrogant, insolent boy who has shown naught but contempt for me. And even more for you, I would remind you, Jorah."  
  
"When you sit the Iron Throne, do you intend to punish every show of insolence and contempt made against you and yours? I had thought you took more after your brother, but when Aerys knew he'd lost the war he preferred to burn the kingdom rather than let another have it--"  
  
She interrupted him with a blow so hard across the cheek that a patch of dark red erupted on his skin before she had even withdrawn her hand. As the crack, which had rung out in the silent wood, was swallowed up by a sudden rush of wind through the branches, she noticed that everyone around them, not only Quaithe in her priestly vestments, was tinted red. And not from the dawn--of that she was certain even before the shriek above the canopy heralded Drogon's arrival.   
  
"Griff had best hurry and find those eggs," said Tyrion, "because it seems to me Pyat Pree won't have to look very long to find the dragon."  
  
"And it won't be long before Drogon roasts a dwarf!" Jorah shoved Tyrion hard out of the way at the same moment as his callused fingers closed tight around Dany's wrist, pulling her aside just as the black serpentine form blasted down through the trees in a wreath of flame.   
  
"COVER!" Jorah bellowed to the other men beneath the burning canopy of trees who were struggling to keep control of the horses which had instantly gone mad with fear.   
  
Dany was herself transfixed, though for an entirely different reason than her bloodriders and Ser Barristan. She marveled at the span of Drogon's leathern wings--as long as Jhogo's horse from head to hind, and he was not yet full-grown. In the dawn the undersides of them were as red as the blood gleaming on his fangs and the lust for more of it that shone in his eyes, red as the fire that poured from his yawning maw--and surely as hot, too; how she wished she could leap onto his back and ride him now, swifter than she had flown even astride her little silver mare across the Dothraki Sea, and feel the heat of him all through her as she had the night she had birthed him in flame.   
  
And by the gods, the _strength_ of him… The beat of those wings was nearly enough to make her falter where she stood. Drogon seemed a god himself, his power reaching over the very seasons. Embers that had once been blue leaves swirled around in the wind of his wings like swarms of fireflies in summer, before burning out and falling to the earth as if autumn had come on suddenly, settling as ashes on the ground, white and delicate as the first fresh snow. _Winter is Coming_ were the words of House Stark--but _Dragons are Coming_ would be more apt a warning.  
  
 _How magnificent my conquest will be!_ Dany looked around, dazzled and dizzy, her heart thundering in her breast like a Dothraki horde. _How beautiful!_ Drogon _is beautiful…He is my child!_  
  
"DANY, _MOVE_!" Jorah jerked her backward so forcefully that her wrist burned from the friction of his rough skin against hers; the socket of her shoulder was on fire, too. Drogon dived, his reptilian eyes focused to pinpricks of blood in his black face as he aimed his fire at some unseen prey.   
  
A shriek of human agony wailed above the screams of the horses and the dragon's battlesong, and the stench of burnt flesh, the blood drained from Dany's face.   
  
"DROGON, _NO!_ "   
  
He paid no heed to her command as she uttered it in High Valyrian, nor when she pronounced it again in the Common Tongue of Westeros, nor to her third desperate attempt in the guttural tones of the Dothraki. She thought she even saw an expression like spite in the twist of his mouth and the gleam of his eye as it met hers and he caught the burning charred blue-robed figure in his talons and soared upward again.   
  
"No harm, Your Grace," Tyrion's drawl filled her ears as Jorah dragged her beneath the dubious shelter of the derelict portico of the House of the Undying. "It was only Pyat Pree. Only I'm not certain whether Prince Drogon demonstrates impeccable taste, or an unrefined palate."  
  
"Indiscriminate, I think," said Jorah, coughing from the smoke that snaked around the burning trees. "Look."   
  
He pointed with a sooty hand as Drogon plunged through the foliage again. His claws were empty of Pyat Pree, but Dany saw a limb dangling from his mouth for a moment before he breathed a fire that engulfed Makho, who would not abandon his terrified horse to save himself.   
  
"The next person who japes will not long have a tongue to laugh with," Dany snarled over her shoulder at the men, though she knew Jorah had not been joking. "This is no mummer's farce for our entertainment."   
  
Nor was it magnificent or beautiful as it had seemed to her just a few moments before. Pyat Pree may have deserved such a death, but Makho had been brother to Rakharo, and the blood of her blood before her escape necessitated his death.   
  
Drogon _was_ indiscriminate, as Jorah had said. The innocent and the guilty alike would burn in agony when she took him and his brothers to King's Landing; the city would reek of their blood mingled with the incense from the Great Sept of Baelor as it smoldered like the Temple of Memory had in Qarth.   
  
Unless she controlled him.   
  
Jorah's fingers had slackened around her wrist; Dany vaulted off the steps, heedless of her husband's shouts for her to come back and the clatter of his armor as he followed hard on her heels, dodging the burning branches that fell from the trees.   
  
"Jhogo, your whip!"   
  
He tossed it to her without hesitation, and she caught it by the handle. To her right, Jorah dug his heels into the ground to stop himself short of the lash as she unfurled it with a smooth backward swipe of her arm and flick of her wrist that came quite naturally to her, cracking the leather tail against Drogon's flank. _As if I come from a line of dragon tamers_ , she thought, a smirk curling her lip. "DROGON, TO ME!"  
  
He swung his great head toward her. He blinked at her slowly, almost cow-like, and for a heartbeat, Dany believed she had subdued him. Then, as her exhilaration rose again--as if he had timed it perfectly to spite her, a rebellious adolescent child hells bent on exerting his power over his parent--the blood gleam flared in his eye.   
  
Drogon wheeled in the air with a shriek and a beat of his wings and tail that knocked Tyrion off his feet as he waddled across the clearing. Dany could only assume he'd decided the portico was not the safest place after all--a decision which proved wise, despite his tumble, when the dragon unleashed another volley of fire at the House of the Undying.   
  
Dany screamed till her throat was raw, throwing her whip against Drogon's hide with the ferocity of a master against an insubordinate slave, but to no avail. He seemed not to feel the beating at all through his scaly armor--or, if he could, not to mind the pain.   
  
The ruined building poured forth color. Red flames coiled out of the crumbling roof like snakes from underground burrows, while from the door emerged blue figures Dany did not at first recognize as human because not only were their robes and lips that hue, but their entire faces, their hands, and any bits of flesh exposed by their clothing.   
  
"Not so undying after all, these Undying Ones," said Tyrion, coughing.   
  
They watched the stooped and crawling figures, whose indigo skin stretched taut across their bones or sagged from it with their extreme age, escape death by fire only to meet their end at the fang and talons of the dragon.   
  
"But Griff, apparently, is." Tyrion looked at Dany. "Can it be that I know _two_ people who can withstand fire?"  
  
"Or he cannot," Jorah said, "and burns there now. If the sorcery hasn't killed him already. Come--"  
  
"Come," spoke a woman's clear voice in unison with the rasp of Jorah's.   
  
Quaithe.   
  
She stood at the entrance to the House of the Undying, red in the midst of the place where frail blue bodies lay dying or dead, and beckoned to Dany with a red-gloved hand.   
  
"Come and walk the path you have chosen," Quaithe said, and Dany followed-or thought she did.   
  
She felt Jorah's strong hands clamp around her upper arms, pulling her away from the priestess, yet his voice had receded, a muted rumble, like that of the crackling fire, while the warlocks' seat loomed ever closer. As she neared it--or it neared her--the stones crumbled or melted before her, she couldn't be sure which, revealing a maze of corridors and staircases such as she had not expected to be contained within the low long line of its façade.   
  
On either side of her loomed open doorways, and in her mind whispered the instructions Quaithe had given Griff, and Jorah, even longer ago: Many doors may open to you. Go through none but the right _one_. Though she tried to walk past the first, the room beyond it seemed to yawn wider, like the maw of a ravening animal, devouring her in a single gulp.   
  
Rather than being enveloped in the black warmth of a belly, snow swirled all around her so that everything was whited out. The only color to be found poured from a dozen wounds on the belly of a white wolf who bled the frozen ground red.   
  
Dany moved to leave--she could see the darkened corridor of the House of the Undying on the other side of the dead wolf--but as she picked her way around the corpse, her arms raised to fend off the crows that swooped in to peck at it--she felt the wolf's glassy eyes following her, and saw that from his bloodstained fur protruded a sword.   
  
At once she recognized the blade as Valyrian steel; the pommel had been forged into the shape of an animal's snout. Remembering the promise she'd made to Jorah on their wedding night that someday she would restore Longclaw, his family's sword, to him, she shooed away the crows. But, as her hand closed around the hilt, she realized that the animal was not the bear of House Mormont, after all, but a wolf, and turned aside to continue on her way.   
  
Upon reaching the doorway, however, she was nearly bowled over by an enormous creature with the black shaggy body of a bear and three serpentine heads, one black, one green, and one the colour of fresh cream. Each mouth breathed a flame, and Dany cried out, not for herself, but for the poor dying wolf in the snow.   
  
But when she looked back over her shoulder there was no wolf, nor any crows. Only a host of creatures the likes of which she had never seen, though she had heard of them in the stories Viserys used to delight to tell her, frightening her too much for her to sleep: the walking dead, human and animal alike, and the Others with their bright cold eyes and even brighter, colder blades.   
  
Dany cursed herself for not having pulled the sword from the wolf's belly when she'd had the chance--only Valyrian steel could kill an Other, Viserys had told her. But the three-headed beast reared back on its hind legs, then, and poured its fire down on the fell creatures from Beyond the Wall, as Jorah, whom she had not noticed before, leapt down from the ursine back, wielding the dragonglass dagger she had given him for a wedding present.   
  
He ripped it through the gullet of one Other, then plunged it into the sapphire eye of another. The White Walkers scattered, their icy robes parting like a curtain to reveal the wolf, who while clearly not dead, lingered half a ghost.   
  
Its eyes fixed blearily on Jorah, and the black lips parted to whisper, "Unsheathe Longclaw, my Lord of House Mormont. You are pardoned. You are forgiven."   
  
Dany saw tears in Jorah's eyes as he slowly drew the blade--whose pommel bore a bear's head now--from the bubbling blood of the wolf's belly, and she reached up to wipe them away. His fingers closed around hers, then he pulled her up behind him on the back of the bear dragon, and together they rode through the doorway into a chamber with red stone walls.   
  
The stench of the burning flesh wafted after them into the place so strongly that Dany slipped from the shaggy back of her three-headed mount and retched. When she had emptied the contents of her stomach, she looked up from the pool of vomit on the polished red floor and saw before her the Iron Throne.   
  
Seated on it, of course, was the king. From the tangled mane of silver hair, the yellow, jagged fingernails that curled over the swords that formed the armrests of the throne, and the scabs which made his pale skin resemble burnt parchment, she never would have guessed he was a Targaryen. She knew, however, that he was Aerys, her own lord father. There was no mistaking the madness that burned in his eyes like a wick of violet flame.   
  
But as if it were a candle that had been snuffed out, the life in Aerys' eyes was extinguished as a bloodied blade protruded suddenly through his chest, and his limp body fell before the place where Dany kneeled.   
  
Recoiling, She leapt to her feet, peering up to see Ser Jaime Lannister standing behind the throne. The look on his face was not at all triumphant and arrogant as the one she'd always imagined the Kingslayer would wear--at least not at first. Ser Jaime's features changed as he grew, shifting from undeniable youthful beauty tinged with sadness to something altogether horrible, his arms and legs stretching until he was as large as a giant, no, a mountain…  
  
The Mountain that Rides, Gregor Clegane, tore a mewling newborn babe from his mother's arms and bashed his head against the wall, again and again, until Dany's outstretched hands were coated with the child's blood and bones and brains.   
  
"AEGON!" she screeched, tasting it on her tongue and teeth and running hot and thick down her throat like the horse's heart she'd devoured before the _dosh khaleen_. "What have I done, by the Seven, WHAT HAVE I DONE? The last living son of my brother! Let me go, I must go to him, I will not burn!"  
  
She struggled against Jorah's arms, which still held her back as he had before the visions came upon her, as if no time at all had passed, though it seemed to her that she had wandered for hours, days, a lifetime in that place. The fire _had_ brought down much of the façade, but there were no corridors before her, no doorways.   
  
Only the silhouette of Aegon Targaryen, a babe no longer, but a man grown, standing firm and resolved and wreathed in flame. Dany could not see his lilac eyes through the haze of smoke, yet she felt she had met them somehow, because she knew what he thought and felt in that moment.   
  
And then he strode out, his clothing all burnt away but his skin and hair so white that he shone. He clutched two eggs in his unburnt hands, one cream and one green, both crackled with glowing yellow lines.   
  
He placed them in Dany's arms, and strangely their weight made her feel that a burden had been lifted from her shoulders, their heat warming a place deep within her that she had not even realized had been cold. Peace stole over her, and Drogon swooped down gently behind her, resting his searing hot muzzle on her shoulder as together they watched his brothers hatch.  
  
"Your children, Daenerys," said Aegon, when Viserion and Rhaegal had emerged from their eggs, Dany having pulled off the broken bits of shells that clung to their scales that shone like jewels. "Queen of Dragons."  
  
"Not queen," she said quietly, and put her newborn children to breast. "Only mother."


	33. A Time to Weep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dany and Jorah approach journey's end; but has their path led them to any destination but sorrow?

Aegon-- _King_ Aegon, the Sixth of that name--had cut off the dyed blue ends of his hair by which he had disguised himself as the lowborn son of a Tyroshi woman. In the grey dawn, a few strands blew free of the thong that bound his hair at his nape and whipped about his face, catching the early light and gleaming as bright as his newly forged crown of entwined dragons with rubies for eyes. As the crew made ready _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ to set sail for Valyria, he stood talking quietly on the quay with Dany, a vision herself in a blood red dress against which her skin and the dragon cradled in her arms were pale as the moon. Rightly had Khal Drogo called her moon of his life, though Jorah was more keen to observe how Aegon had never looked more Targaryen. No longer petulant and entitled, like his uncle Viserys, but mild and kingly, a true son of Rhaegar.   
  
"Are you certain, Daenerys," the young man asked, "that you will not wait and sail with my fleet?" Xaro Xhoan Daxos had, after all, proved a faithful friend to House Targaryen--or at least to the trade agreements Tyrion Lannister brokered on King Aegon's behalf. "If not as my queen--"   
  
The lilac eyes flicked over her shoulder to Jorah, who stood behind her at the foot of the gangplank, at his own insistence occupying the position not of lord husband, but queensguard, though she had relinquished her claim to that title; nevertheless, Aegon's fingers curled around the ruby-studded hilt of the sword that hung sheathed at his side, as if he expected Jorah to take offence at the remark.  
  
"--then as the sister of my father?" Aegon went on, dragging his eyes back to Dany's, and smiling. "Your seat shall be at Dragonstone, the place of your birth, and I shall grant your husband his pardon, restoring his lordship and extending his lands and holdings, as befits your high birth."  
  
"That is most generous of you, Your Grace," Dany replied.  
  
"Aegon."  
  
"But I think it not me so much as my dragons you wish to accompany you to the Seven Kingdoms."   
  
She spoke in the soft tone she'd used almost exclusively of late, and though he stood behind her, Jorah knew her lips curved faintly in the only smile she had been able to muster since she beheld the truths of the House of the Undying. He knew she was troubled by what she'd seen--so had he been, after venturing inside the warlocks' domain--yet her subdued demeanor unsettled him when she had been all crackling, blazing fire since…well, since she'd stepped out of the ashes in which she'd given birth to Drogon.   
  
"Would you be king of charred bones and cooked meat, like your grandfather?" She sighed, wearily, her shoulders sagging; Jorah resisted the impulse to lay a comforting hand on one. "No, I must take my children and go where they may do no harm."  
  
Drogon--and the other two, though they were yet so small as to be of no real danger to anyone, at least not in comparison to their great black beast of a brother--had been uncharacteristically docile ever since he'd lain his head on Dany's shoulder to watch Rhaegal and Viserion hatch. The only explanation Jorah could think of was that, like all children, the dragon responded to his mother's moods, and that her own ire at Aegon, at Pyat Pree, at House Targaryen's enemies in Westeros, had stoked the fire that simmered within Drogon's belly until he erupted with all the fury of the volcanoes of Valyria. Jorah was, of course, as relieved as any of them that being burnt to death no longer seemed imminent; however, he wished he could be sure whether Dany had, of her own volition, allowed the fire within her spirit to dwindle to but a glowing ember, or if the revelation about Aegon had extinguished it.   
  
And he wished he could be certain that it was necessary for her to hide her dragons away in Valyria, and she with them. They had lived happily there, once, but it wasn't _home_.   
  
"Should you ever return to Westeros…" said Aegon, gesturing to Tyrion Lannister, who waddled up alongside him bearing a silken cloth. The king took it from him, withdrawing the fabric to reveal a delicate circlet that complimented his own crown, and placed it with his own long-fingered hands atop Dany's silvery-golden coronet of braids "…it shall be as Princess Daenerys Targaryen, Lady of Dragonstone and Bear Island."  
  
Dany thanked him, and Aegon took his leave of her. Tyrion, however, lingered, taking Dany's girlish hand in his disproportioned one and pressing a kiss to it.   
  
"I must express my sincere regret that I will not have the opportunity to be Hand of the Queen," he said; to the front of his new doublet was pinned the traditional insignia of the King's Hand. "At least His Grace is pretty enough that I may pretend, should I find my heart heavy with missing you."   
  
Intent upon the profile of Dany's cheek, Jorah at once felt elation to see it twitch with the widening of her smile, and a heaviness that Tyrion, too often of late the only person capable of eliciting anything like merriment from her, would no longer be their constant companion.   
  
"And you, Ser Bear," said Tyrion, as if he had read Jorah's thoughts, sidling around the queen to approach the group on the gangplank. "I hope we shall drink together again. Preferably with no teeth broken."  
  
"That depends on whether you continue speaking to my lady in this manner."  
  
"The manner that says I think you're a damn fortunate bastard to have won the love of so fair a lady? You give me hope, my Lord Mormont, that when I return to Westeros, my own pretty little wife may be more…amenable."  
  
"It does help to have a nose."  
  
"Jorah," Dany chided.   
  
But the two men shook hands, Jorah clapping Tyrion on the shoulder as the dwarf reached to tweak Rhaego's nose, pretending one last time to steal it for himself. As the lad's shriek of laughter rang out amid the morning din of fishing boats skimming into the harbor as merchant vessels and trader's ships put out to sea, Ser Barristan Selmy made his quiet way forward in his new white cloak, dropping to one knee before Dany.   
  
"My lady," he said, head downcast, "I would serve you as well as the king, were I able."  
  
Dany bent and cupped his wizened cheek in her hand, drawing his face up to hers; Jorah saw how the old knight's sad blue eyes pooled with tears.   
  
She kissed Selmy's forehead and said, "The Kingsguard is for life. Go, ser, and serve the king you were meant to serve. With the gods' blessing--and mine."  
  
Despite the initial mistrust she'd harbored Ser Barristan, Jorah expected no less than this level of graciousness, though she was no longer Her Grace. Still, grace, like ice, must crack under pressure, and while Dany could not burn she--or the mask--might. She was, after all, a woman with child, and Jorah prepared himself to pick up the pieces as they boarded the ship.   
  
However, the moment _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ had slipped out of sight of their companions who bid them farewell on the wharf, Dany set Rhaegal to perch upon the railing, then reached her hands up to remove the circlet of entwined dragons from about her head. She examined it for a moment, turning it over in her hands, tracing the white gold delicately with the tip of her finger, her expression unreadable.   
  
At length, she said, "It is very like the one I had made in Valyria--" She caught her lower lip between her teeth.   
  
"For our wedding," Jorah finished for her.   
  
Dany looked up at him, her lip red--bloodied?--where she had bitten it but her voice unbroken. "When you thought you married a queen."  
~*~  
  
They had not said goodbye to all their friends in Qarth; Jhogo and his bloodriders, his wife Irri and her handmaids would sail aboard _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ as far as the Lands of the Long Summer, where the _khalasar_ awaited, and then the ship would carry her namesakes across the Smoking Sea to their final destination, the isle of Valyria. Jorah could not but wonder whether Dany would show more emotion at being parted from the blood of her blood and her beloved ladies-in-waiting than she had toward those she had known for so short a time, or whether she would rein in that, too, to keep her dragons' peace. Or whether she _could_ feel anything, at all, anymore.   
  
Before that parting could occur, however, they were pleasantly surprised by a meeting a fortnight into their voyage.   
  
"Khal Jhogo!"  
  
Dany waved to the men gathered at the railing as she emerged from belowdecks, where she'd been ensconced for the better part of a day with the girls attending Irri, wearing blood and fluid-stained apron over the Dothraki garb she favored at sea. The young man whom Jorah had pretended not to notice being sick over the side of the ship looked up and over his shoulder, his face more green than swarthy and almost comically wide-eyed as Dany approached.   
  
"Your _khaleesi_ would like you to meet the new _khalakki_."  
  
For an awkward moment Jhogo stood as an open-mouthed statue, but for the sea breeze ruffling through his hair, pulling strands loose from his braid. His bloodriders took the news of a girl child with less enthusiasm than if Dany had told them a female colt had been born. Her smile faltered and she looked to Jorah for help.   
  
"A daughter," Jorah said, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. "May she be the mother of _khals_ and blessed among the _dosh khaleen_."  
  
The bloodriders followed Jorah's lead, invoking the customary congratulations, and Khal Jhogo's chest heaved beneath his painted horsehair vest, his nostrils flaring as he released a breath gods only knew how long he'd been holding. A white-toothed grin split across his face. "I am father!"   
  
When the three Dothraki men had thundered belowdecks, Dany wiped the back of her hand across her sweaty brow and neck and sagged against a coil of thick rope half as tall as herself.   
  
"I feel almost as exhausted as if _I_ had given birth," she said, rubbing her belly which was just beginning to bulge beneath the leather vest, as if she'd eaten a large meal. "I don't remember my labor with Rhaego lasting half so long."  
  
"And I thought the boy would never come."   
  
Jorah's heart leapt up as Dany's eye met his, sparkling, and his chuckle rumbled together with her sweet laugh for the first time in longer than he cared to imagine.   
  
"Come," he said, brushing his hand over the swell of her stomach before he took her hands and pulled her gently to her feet. "You should rest."   
  
Where, he did not know, for Dany had insisted that Irri labor in their own quarters, where she would have more privacy and room to pace. At the thought, images rushed to the front of his mind of Dany prowling about the crumbling courtyard of Vaes Tolorro, growling and roaring like a caged animal; before he could stop himself, his imagination erected walls of pine in place of the white stone City of Bones, and he saw her squatting over a carpet of rushes supported by his lady aunt and his she-bear cousins as she delivered the blood of _his_ blood.   
  
Thankfully, this impossible line of thought was interrupted by Khal Jhogo bursting abovedecks, his bloodriders clambering at his heels and his daughter shrieking like a frightened horse as he held her aloft and bellowed in the tones of a victorious warrior.   
  
"Tonight we feast new _khalakki_ \--Dan Ares _Havazhyol_!"  
  
"Dan Ares _Havazhyol_!" echoed the bloodriders, as well as Doreah and Jhiqui, who had at that moment come up from the hold, gingerly guiding the new mother up the stairs; on land, Dothraki women were back in the saddle almost as soon as they had borne their babes--though Irri, Jorah suspected, might be grateful, for the first time, to be aboard a ship rather than astride a horse.   
  
However, it was Dany's reaction to all of this that demanded his attention after this cursor observation.  
  
"Daenerys Sea-born," she murmured, and Jorah thought he detected a quaver in her voice, a too-quick flutter of her eyelashes, a downward pull at the corner of her mouth before her smile widened. "You honor me, Khal Jhogo."  
  
"What you say, _khaleesi_?" Jhogo persisted, depositing the squalling bundle in her arms and nodding to Rhaego who toddled up to Dany and tugged at the leg of her leather riding trousers, clearly misliking the idea of his mother holding any child but him. "We…what is word? Someday Dan Ares Sea-born marry with Stallion Who Mounts the World?"  
  
"Betroth," Jorah supplied the word for Jhogo, looking at Dany from beneath raised eyebrows.   
  
"Yes," replied the _khal_. "Betroth."  
  
Dany passed the babe to the new mother, who shot her _khal_ a dark look as she put her daughter to breast, then took her own son in her arms, her silver-gold hair blending with his as she rested her cheek against his head.   
  
"If they wish it," she murmured, her voice shuddering, as if with the tears Jorah saw so clearly pooled in her eyes…  
  
…but which she still did not shed.   
  
~*~  
  
If he was honest, Jorah had never truly believed that Dany would part ways with the Dothraki on the shores of the Lands of the Long Summer. He'd held his tongue whenever she spoke about their impending exile in Valyria because he was certain that when she saw the might of the _khalasar_ which Khal Jhogo had placed under her command--twenty thousand riders--she would remember how the answer to the prayer she'd long made to the gods at last lay within her grasp, even if she did not unleash her dragons upon Westeros. Even when she boarded _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ again and bid Captain Groleo to chart the course for the final leg of their voyage across the Smoking Sea, Jorah had not stopped her from closeting herself belowdecks, convinced that an hour's brooding would bring her to her senses and would order them to sail back before the _khalasar_ could ride too far ahead of them.   
  
When Groleo held Rhaego up to the helm and let him play at steering the ship toward the land of his forefathers, from which they were less than ten leagues, Jorah could keep silent no longer.   
  
He slung Rhaego over his shoulder to go in search of her, growling at the boy when he howled at being taken from the wheel that he was blood of the dragon, not a bloody kraken; Dany would be less inclined to argue if her son was present, and Jorah knew he, too, would benefit from a reminder to rein in his own temper should he find himself in danger of inciting the dragons' wroth in the event that he confront his wife in _their_ presence.   
  
As expected, he found her down in the hold where her dragons were kept, lying curled on her side with them on their bed of straw. She sat up at the scrape of Jorah's boots on the wooden steps, her gaze touching his just long enough for him to ascertain that she had not been weeping.   
  
" _Mai!_ " the boy called to his mother in Dothraki at the same instant; Jorah watched the light flicker in her eyes like a struck match, saw the soft upward curve of her lips as her son ran not to her but to the dragons.   
  
"Rhaego knew we'd find you here." Jorah measured his tone though he wanted to grasp her shoulders in his hands and shake her and shout at her until she _must_ feel something. Even if it was the dragons' fiery wroth. For that very reason, he did not. He breathed in, long and slow, through his nose as he lowered himself beside her onto the rush-covered wooden floor. "'Mama with _zhavvorsa_ ,' he told me."  
  
"I _zhavorsa_!"   
  
Rhaego abandoned his pursuit of lifting Viserion and Rhaegal, who had grown too large in the weeks at sea for the lad to do so as he had been wont in early days, instead settling for swinging one leg over Drogon's neck as if to ride the beast. The dragon blinked tolerantly, reminding Jorah of the hounds at home who bore his young cousins' rough play as they lazed before the fire in the great hall.   
  
"He learns new words by the day," Dany remarked, "in Dothraki and the Common Tongue."  
  
Rhaego bared his teeth. " _RAWR!_ "  
  
"And in dragon," Dany added, giggling--though the sound trailed away into a sigh when she saw that Jorah did not laugh with her.  
  
"We have neglected his High Valyrian," he said. "He will need it, if we really mean to go where we are bound."  
  
" _If_?" Dany echoed him. "How far does my captain say we are from Valyria?"  
  
Jorah gritted his teeth. "Less than ten leagues."  
  
"Then, yes. We really do mean to go there." Before Jorah could say they could always turn back--perhaps anticipating that he intended to--Dany went on, "Rhaego will learn quickly, if he's anything like me."  
  
"That's true." Jorah plucked off a piece of straw that had attached itself to his breeches and rolling it between his thumb and forefingers. "It didn't take you long at all to master the Dothraki tongue. Or the authority of a _khaleesi_."   
  
She winced at that, and though Jorah had come to her determined to make his feelings known to her, he wished he'd thought better of those particular words before uttering them. He remembered early in their journey together, when she'd been so wounded by the betrayal of Mirri Maz Duur, and, consequently, of her own people, that she had not permitted him to call her by her Dothraki title. His intention had not been to remind her of another thing she had lost; yet he couldn't deny it brought him no small measure of relief to see that her heart was _not_ all armored by a skin as impenetrable as a dragon's scales.   
  
She tugged her shawl up around her bare shoulders, clasping the ends together at her bosom as if it were an embrace. Jorah scowled. She sought neither his council, nor his comfort.   
  
"We'll leave you to your solitude. Rhaego, _jadat_." He beckoned to the child, around whom the dragons had converged in a tangle of necks and flickering tongues that was rather too serpentine for Jorah's comfort. Or perhaps it was the way they Drogon eyed _him_ , as if he knew that Jorah's purpose in coming would not please the dragons' mother. He started to push himself off the floor, but Dany clutched at his sleeve.  
  
"Stay?" she asked, her eyes round and luminous as he had not seen them look since her early insecure days as Drogo's bride. "I have need of my husband's wisdom, and his arms around me."  
  
Jorah blinked at her. It seemed his thoughts had been premature.   
  
"The latter I can provide," Jorah replied, settling himself once again on the floor and drawing her into his lap as he enfolded her slight frame in his. "As for wisdom…I'll try."  
  
"Rhaego?" Dany said. "Go and find the cook and ask him for some bread."  
  
" _Zhavorsa_ eat meat!"   
  
Dany tilted hear head up to look at Jorah, who shrugged his shoulders, and then leaned back in his embrace, shaking her head slightly in bemusement at her son. "A bit of salt pork, then. Ask him if there is any goat's milk, as well."  
  
Watching the boy scrabble up the steps out of the hold on his lithe legs, flapping his arms like wings and screeching, Jorah had to remark, "No one would doubt that one's blood of the dragon."   
  
"That's what troubles me, Jorah," said Dany softly. "What about the crones' prophesy? Rhaego shall be the Stallion Who Mounts the World, uniting all the people on earth into one _khalasar_. How will he do that if we go into exile?"  
  
"You know I put little stock in prophecies or omens, witchcraft or sorcery."  
  
"Yet you've lost no little sleep to the visions you saw in the House of the Undying."   
  
Jorah had no response to that; he watched mutely as Dany slipped from his embrace and stood, her hand light upon his shoulder to balance herself. The soles of her sandals scuffed over the straw as she went to her dragons, and for the first time Jorah noticed faint grayish clouds puffing from their nostrils. She picked up Viserion from where he lay curled entwined with his cream-colored twin, and he seemed almost a hairless green cat when his head fell back as she raked her fingernails over the delicate scales at his throat.   
  
"What does it all mean?" she asked. "You saw your wife die, and I saw my father slain…along with the babe everyone thought was my nephew. You watched me birth my dragons half a year before I hatched Drogon in Valyria. We both saw the three-headed dragon with the body of a bear--"  
  
"Strange, I warrant you," Jorah said before she could go further in her recitation of the disturbing images he'd fought so hard to forget. He lifted a hand to scratch the spot at the back of his head where the hair thinned. "Though no more than any dream."  
  
"What of the dying wolf?" Dany persisted, the dragon leaping up onto her shoulder as she stepped toward Jorah, her voice rising in pitch and volume. "The dying bear? The Others and the crows and…your sword?"  
  
"I don't know," Jorah flung back. He'd gotten to his feet as she advanced on him, misliking how his seated position on the floor compelled him to look up at her. "I don't know what it means. If it even means anything at all."   
  
"Everything means something."  
  
"No, Daenerys." Jorah shook his head. "Some things mean nothing, apart from the meanings we assign them."  
  
"But…" Her shoulders slumped as the dragon relaxed his weight, his neck curved behind hers so that his head rested on her other shoulder. "The wolf said you were pardoned. Forgiven. What other meaning _could_ that have?"  
  
That his father the Old Bear was dead, and Ned Stark…along with Jorah's kinswomen who no doubt had marched with young Robb to their graves…That living out his days in exile with Dany didn't matter because there was nothing left of his old home but an empty hall to return to even if there had been anyone to pardon him. Anyone to forgive him.  
  
The anger that had carried him here went out of him, leaving Jorah feeling like a shell of a man, as he had been after his visit to the House of the Undying. He found himself reaching out to brush back a silvery lock of hair that had come loose from the intricate braids Doreah and Jhiqui had woven Dany's hair into, for the last time, that morning, tucking it behind her ear. His palm lingered against her skin for a moment before he cradled her cheek in his fingers, remembering the words he had pledged to her long ago in Qarth: _Wherever you go, my queen, I will follow. Not out of duty, but because I love you. I will follow you however far from Bear Island you may lead me._  
  
He followed her still.   
  
Because he loved her still.   
  
"Perhaps your visions simply mean that you have a gentle heart," he said, "to make my prayer your own."  
  
He half-expected her to rebuff him, as she once had for calling her gentle, but she did not. She did move away, but only to lift Viserion from her shoulder and lay him to sleep beside Rhaegal who'd curled himself atop Drogon's back.  
  
"It's my one regret," she said, "that I will not be able to take you home."  
  
Jorah clasped her hand as she rejoined him, drawing her body close against his. "You're not more disappointed that Rhaego will not inherit the Iron Throne?"  
  
To his surprise, she smiled slightly. "Aegon will make a good king because he is so dutiful. But will duty make the Iron Throne a more comfortable seat for him? Will it make him a happy man? I don't know if it's in our children to be kings and queens, Jorah," she said, placing his hand on her belly. "You never aspired to power, and I mislike conquest."   
  
In her distant gaze, Jorah almost thought he saw the Lhazareen men slaughtered, their wives and children herded up to be raped and enslaved.  
  
"Nor do I wish to sell our sons and daughters in marriage to make alliances in war or in peace," she went on, with steely conviction in her eyes that made it difficult to believe she had once cringed from the brother who had given her to the Dothraki lord before whom she trembled in terror. "I would give them the freedom to choose what lives they would live. As I have chosen."  
  
Her hands on his chest, Dany rose up on her toes to kiss him. Instinctively Jorah inclined his head to meet her, but just as their lips touched, he froze. This calm, this cold acceptance…It wasn't the woman he loved, the woman he would follow to the ends of the earth because of the fire that pumped in place of blood through her veins. _She_ was the Daenerys he needed now, to burn away his hurt, to cauterize his wounds that lay open and bleeding.   
  
His hands gripped her shoulders, and he shook her.  
  
"You have chosen _nothing_. Everything you were born to has been taken from you, by men and by the gods. Your parents. Your brothers. Your husband. Your people. Your kingdom. Your _home_."  
  
"But not _you_ , Jorah," she said, her voice breaking. "Not you, and not your child."  
  
He kissed her, then, leaning so heavily into her as he claimed her mouth with his own and wrapped her arms around her waist that he backed her against the row of barrels that lined the wall of the hold; without breaking their kiss, she put her arms about his neck and he hoisted her up so that she was perched at the edge of one. His tongue glided alongside hers as his fingers tugged the leather lace to free her breasts from the confines of her vest. They had grown larger again with her new pregnancy, and a little sensitive, so he cupped them gently in his hands, her brown nipples hardening at even the lightest touch of the rough pads of his thumb.   
  
When he started to pull away with the intent of trailing kisses over her breasts, her teeth caught his lower lip. He felt her lips smile against his as her fingers slid out of his hair to slide down his chest until she reached the hem of his shirt, tugging it free of his trousers and pulling it up over his belly. She allowed him to break their kiss to peel his shirt off over his head--as he did so, the corner of his eye caught the dragons watching them intently, and had a fleeting thought that at least they didn't seem to regard his actions as a threat to their mother. Discarding his shirt on the floor, Jorah temporarily abandoned the idea of taking Dany's nipple in his mouth in favor of feeling her hot bare skin against his own as he embraced her. By that time, however, he was so hard that his breeches constricted almost painfully, and it wasn't enough just to feel her nude torso.   
  
He dragged his fingers through the indentions of skin between her ribs as his hands traveled from her back to the waist of her sandsilk trousers. As he hooked his fingers inside, she used her shoulders to lift her arse off the barrel so he could slide them off. In his eagerness to have her completely naked, he jerked too hard and heard amidst their ragged gasps for breath and the pounding of his heart in his ears the sound of the delicate fabric tearing. Jorah muttered an apology between kisses, but Dany didn't seem to care about the state of her clothing, biting down again on his lower lip as her feet kicked free of her own trousers and her fingers fumbled with the laces of Jorah's.   
  
When his cock was free she scarcely gave him time to step out of his breeches and boots before she'd wrapped her legs around his waist and looped her arms under his. Her fingernails dug into his skin so deep that he thought he must bleed-- _blood of her blood_ \--and as her sex yielded to his entrance she whispered his name on a breath that was hot in his ear, again and again as the barrel thumped into the wall with his thrusts and scraped forward on the floor with his retreats, just as she had called to him that night in Valyria when he'd thought her lost to him. But he had not lost her.   
  
Not to the fire.  
  
Not to the Red Waste.   
  
Not to the assassin or the Spider, not to the maegi or the warlock.   
  
Not to Aegon.   
  
Not even to the part of her first husband Khal Drogo that lived on in the child she'd borne by him.   
  
_His_ was the name she called, the name that remained though so many others had faded into mere memory. She was his, and no one, man nor god, could take her from him.  
  
" _My_ queen," he murmured as he shuddered within her. "Wherever you are, I am home."  
  
As Daenerys crumbled in his arms, every tear she had saved for a year or more, at last spilled.


	34. Epilogue: The Maiden and the Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stranger seeks Dany and finds her…and brings answers to the questions of her destiny.

  
A stranger, fat and dressed head-to-toe in frayed and faded black, stood in the hall deep in conversation with Dany when Jorah returned home from the errand that had kept him all morning in town. There had been many such errands on many such mornings in the months that the house atop the Summer Hill was being rebuilt, but not been many visitors had passed through the red door.  
  
Even fewer had made the lady of the house weep.   
  
"What guest does my lady entertain?" Jorah's fingers curled instinctively around the hilt of his sword as he prowled in a half-circle to where Dany stood at the head of the hall; her hands rested on the swell of her belly beneath the flowing forest green fabric of her gown, and the wetness glistened on her rounded cheeks as it caught the sunlight pouring through the many-colored glass window opposite her. He laid his free hand on her shoulder, standing protectively just ahead of her and frowned at the man. Boy, really, Jorah amended, on scrutinizing the fat face--from whose gaping mouth had come no sound to answer the question of his identity. "A bearer of ill tidings, I take it?"  
  
The end of Dany's silver braid bobbed at her waist as she shook her head. "I do weep for the death of my great-great uncle, who sent Samwell here in search of me, but--"  
  
"Your great-great uncle?" Jorah interrupted.   
  
"Aemon," came her soft reply.   
  
" _M-maester_ Aemon," stammered the stranger in a cracking voice that either confirmed Jorah's guess about his age, or marked him a coward. Or both. He would not meet Jorah's gaze, his eyes fixed on the onyx bear pinned to his cloak. "Of the Night's Watch."  
  
Jorah's hand slipped from Dany's shoulder; her fingers caught his where they hung at his side, curled limply in toward his palm. " _You_ are a Black Brother yourself?"   
  
"Sam-Samwell Tarly, m-my Lord. And you--" He licked his lips, his gaze locked on Jorah's cloak pin. "I know that sigil." His pale eyes darted down to the floor, and he shuffled back from the place where he stood to take a better look at the red and black dragon-headed bear emblazoned on a green field in mosaic tiles. "I _see_ now…I didn't recognize it when I came in…"  
  
"You wouldn't," said Jorah. "It's a fantastical beast."   
  
"It represents our joined Houses," Dany said, more cordially.   
  
Samwell looked up at her, pointing at Jorah. " _He_ is your husband, Princess Daenerys? Lord Commander Mormont's exiled son? Ser Jorah?"  
  
" _Lord_ Jorah has been pardoned by my nephew King Aegon, who even now fights to reclaim the Seven Kingdoms--"  
  
But Samwell seemed not to hear her. He was laughing. Chortling, like a madman, his hands splayed across his jiggling belly as he lifted his eyes up to the ceiling and rambled on about how remarkable it was that he'd been sent by Maester Aemon to find Princess Daenerys and by the Old Bear to find Jorah but hadn't known where to look for either of them and had been all over the Free Cities and heard strange tales of dragons in Qarth and Valyria, and here they were, together in the same place, as if delivered to him by the gods' own hands.   
  
At the mention of the gods, Jorah snapped from his stupor and grabbed the young man by the front of his cloak, pulling him so that they stood almost nose-to-sniveling nose--and growled, "Does my lord father live?"  
  
Quite to Jorah's surprise, young Samwell did not cringe back from him, a stammering craven; instead his soft features hardened with a man's resolve, the planes of his face thrown into relief by the shadows of things that molded men strong as Valyrian steel out of boys who would in their former lives have splintered like wooden practice swords in the training yard. As only the Wall could do.   
  
"No, my Lord," he answered, without a stutter--though his broad Southron tones were not devoid of compassion.   
  
"Oh, Jorah," Dany breathed as she stepped up from behind him, catching his arm. She meant only to comfort with her touch, but he withdrew from her grasp as his fist slowly uncurled from around Samwell's cloak.   
  
"This news comes as little surprise," Jorah said.   
  
"He had a vision--" Dany started to explain to Samwell, but Jorah had no stomach for more talk of the supernatural after Samwell had already brought the gods into it.   
  
"They don't call him the Old Bear for nothing. And it's not nothing the Black Brothers watch for in the night. How did it happen?"  
  
Samwell's gaze dropped to his worn black boots. "It shames me to speak of it, my Lord."  
  
"Tell it anyway, boy, and tell it true."  
  
"Husband," said Dany, clutching at his sleeve again, "Will it help you to know? If it distresses Samwell--"  
  
"Is it helpful to have only a vision of a bear feasted on by crows?"  
  
Samwell's head jerked up sharply. "It…it _was_ crows. In a manner of speaking." His pale eyes became glassy with tears, but he pinched his lips together and tightened his chin and seemed to throw them back as he straightened his shoulders in a soldier's stance. "We'd retreated from an attack by wights--"  
  
"Wights!" cried Dany, and Jorah knew she would think of nothing now but what she had seen in the House of the Undying.   
  
"So few of us survived to shelter at Craster's Keep," Samwell continued. "The men mutinied…And Lord Commander Mormont was cut down by his own sworn brothers."   
  
The hall seemed to spin around Jorah, the three heads of the dragon turning on the floor beneath his feet like the spokes of a wheel, rising up as the flames that had consumed this house before his eyes not half a year earlier, and the House of the Undying even more recently. His knees quaked and his shoulders bowed as the nightmare beat of crows' wings ascended upon him, but Dany's iron grip on his hand kept him standing.   
  
"I was with him, at the last," Samwell ventured. "He--his last words were of you my lord. He wanted me to find you. To tell you he forgave you."  
  
"And to recruit me for the Night's Watch?" Jorah heard himself say, felt his lips twist with the bitter taste of the words on his tongue.   
  
"Well…yes…" Samwell said.   
  
The Old Bear had pleaded with him to take the Black, and Jorah had balked that a father's forgiveness should have conditions. But if only he had…if he'd been there…he might have saved his father's life, or at least heard his gruff voice speak words of forgiveness with his own ears, or had a memory of his face that did not grimace in sadness and shame.   
  
Dany drew his hand up to her lips, and he felt the moist warmth of her kiss, of her tears.   
  
If he had been with his father, he would not have found _her_ …  
  
Jorah laced their fingers together and drew her into the crook of his arm, laying his hand on her belly. To Samwell, he said, "I believe you men of the Night's Watch vows to take no wives and father no children. And, as you see, I've done both." His child moved against his hand as if in agreement with his point. "So I'm afraid I can't take the Black."  
  
"No," said Samwell. His pink tongue darted out to moisten lips chapped from the salt of the sea and the air, as his eyes flicked to Dany. "But there's still work you can do in the North. You and Princess Daenerys. Winter has come…"  
  
"And with it wildlings and wights?"   
  
"The wildlings are on our side," said Samwell. "But there are White Walkers, and only two things can slay them, Valyrian steel--"  
  
"I had a Valyrian sword, once." Jorah's chest tightened as he imagined the brigands who had slain the Old Bear making off with that great blade.   
  
"It's in safekeeping," Samwell answered. "But I was thinking of dragon fire."   
  
Jorah looked down at Dany, and saw that her face shone with something other than the radiance of being with child. "I thought you had no wish to conquer the people of Westeros with fire and blood?"  
  
"Not to conquer," she said. "To _deliver_."   
  
~*~  
  
She was a silver queen, cloaked and crowned in snow. The head of the axe she clutched tight in her hand had glazed over, and an icicle clinging to the tip caught the ruddy light of the setting sun and appeared a drop of frozen blood.   
  
"Your lady is beautiful," said Daenerys, peering up at the gate from within the hood of her cloak of white bear fur, her breath steaming in the frosty air.   
  
"I've always loved her," Maege Mormont replied, her thick callused hand caressing the carving. "More than any goddess, old or new." Her gaze left the figurehead and settled just as tenderly on Dany and the babe just visible where her cloak parted, suckling at her breast--Jeorhys, whom she'd delivered at Castle Black after she delivered the kingdom. "And now it seems she has come to us in the flesh."  
  
Dany's cheeks flushed as she laughed and looked above at Jorah who still sat astride his mount; Rhaego rode in front of him in the saddle, bundled up with him in the black bearskin for the shared warmth of the cloak.   
  
"I asked Jorah if I should carry a battleaxe so I could make a proper arrival," she said, "but he pointed out I'd have to be naked to be just like her." Warmth prickled over her at the memory of the way he'd looked at her when he said it, only for the wind to touch her skin with its icy fingers and send goosflesh prickling up over the patch of her exposed skin. With her free hand she tucked her cloak a little more snugly around her, and Jeorrhys. "Fire cannot kill a dragon, but we do feel the cold."   
  
A husky chuckle rattled in Maege's chest, as if she had not laughed in a long time; her three daughters--Lyanna, Lyra, and Alysayne the only ones left now, though the latter held Maege's grandson, a lad not a year older than Rhaego on her hip, and her daughter peered curiously over her shoulder--glanced at one another in surprise, before their teeth bared in grins from out of their fur-lined hoods.   
  
"Maybe we ought to have a dragon carved to ride on her shoulder," said Maege, "to make her a proper representation of our new Lady Mormont, Mother of Dragons."   
  
"To remind me of my children who have flown the nest," said Dany, her tears freezing white upon her lashes.   
  
Though the dragons' fire drove the White Walkers back from whence they came--hopefully forever-- Dany had left Drogon at Castle Black, Rhaegal at Eastwatch, and Viserion at the Shadow Tower, placing them under the command of Ser Barristan Selmy, Ser Jaime Lannister, and Lord Jon Connington, who had all taken the Black and sworn their allegiance to Daenerys, Warden of the Wall.   
  
"Thank you, Lady Maege."   
  
"Aunt," Maege corrected her, brushing her lips roughly across Dany's cheek. "You are most welcome."   
  
She gestured for Dany to enter through the gate, and beckoned to Jorah on his mount. "You'd best close your mouth before the weasels get in, boy, and come down from that horse. Your kinswomen want to welcome you home."


End file.
